Aliens Among Us
by Chris7221
Summary: Ruby Jones is as fast as she is cheerful. Anna Weiss is cold and regal. Bella Blake is quiet, mysterious, and never takes off her hat. Linda Anderson is flaming hot and goes by a Chinese name. All of them seem oddly familiar. Impossibly familiar.
1. New Arrivals

And we're off! This is very, very different from what I usually write, so we'll see how it goes. I'm not exactly well-versed with normal stuff like fashion or music, and it's been a while since I've been to high school.

I know it's weird (and maybe a little disappointing) to see what's essentially a slice-of-life high school AU after the roller-coaster ride that was Emergence, but there's actually a lot of things I want to do with this.

New setting, new OCs, a new world to explore. Let's get this show on the road.

* * *

><p><span><strong>1: New Arrivals<strong>

_**Connor Lloyd**_

It just wasn't my day.

First, it was Monday, so I had PE first block. I mean, I have it every day, but I really hated it in the morning. I'd rather be doing math or computer stuff or even English, just anything but PE. I'd never had a good PE class I liked, but this one was the worst.

Mr. Lee was one of those PE teachers that wasn't supposed to exist anymore. Physical Education was supposed to promote fitness and knowledge of being healthy. Mr. Lee treated it as an athletics course. It wasn't what they said it was supposed to be- doing your best

Not that I could do much, anyway.

And then there were the guys who made fun of me because I was bad at the class. Or, to be not as nice about it, bullied me for being unfit. It wasn't my fault I liked other things. It wasn't my fault I figured there were more important things to pursue than being able to run fast or lift a lot of weight.

It was kind of funny, actually, because that's what my big brother is all about. We look like brothers, sort of, but he's this big football player and I'm the nerd with the glasses.

So, two hours after getting up on Monday- that's half an hour into class if you're counting- I found myself being pushed around when we were supposedly playing basketball.

Like, literally pushed around. We were supposed to be doing passing drills, but instead we were doing keep-it-away-from-Connor drills. The other guys I was supposed to be playing with- bullies who probably rigged it to all be with me- were taller and faster and just better. They taunted me as they kept the ball away from me.

"Over here! Too late!" Jason, the ringleader. Combining actions with words, I'll give him some credit for that. If only I could prove the pen was mightiest when combined with the sword.

"Hey, slowpoke!" His friend, with some Indian name I could never pronounce. Am I the only one who thinks of the Pokemon when I hear slowpoke? I hope a Charizard burns down your house and eats you.

"Geez, how fucking bad can you get?" The bully known best as Sir-Swears-A-Lot. Edgy, but unoriginal. Fuck you too.

I hate PE.

"Can I join you guys?" a girl asked quietly. I turned to look and nearly got a basketball in the face.

I hadn't seen this girl before- I had a terrible memory for names but usually I could tell if I'd seen someone before. She was pretty cute, but more in a huggable kind of way, not like a hot romance kind of way. She had black hair streaked with red, grey eyes, and an Achievement Hunter shirt of all things, which I had a minor nerdgasm at.

"I'm Ruby Jones," she introduced. I felt almost like she should finish it with something else. She did look kind of familiar, like maybe she looked like an actress or something. She added, "I'm new to the school."

"How are you at basketball, Ruby?" Jason asked, doing a really bad job of hiding his annoyance of having someone shoved into his perfectly-formed group.

"I've never played it before," she admitted. That was weird- I was a total shut-in and even I knew how to play... sort of.

"Well, we're just doing passing drills now," Jason explained, dribbling the ball like an asshole. "You catch the ball, and then you pass it to someone else, like this."

He demonstrated, passing it to the Indian guy, who passed it to Sir-Swears-A-Lot, who passed it back to Jason.

"Now you try!" He passed the ball to Ruby, who awkwardly caught it. To my surprise, she turned to me and tossed it straight at me. Way too hard.

I stumbled back and gasped when the hard rubber ball slammed into my sternum. I mean, I usually dodged balls instead of catching them because it hurt but this was even worse than usual.

"What a wimp!" Jason uttered, laughing along with his two buddies.

"Sorry!" Ruby apologized. She actually looked like she felt bad about it. She turned to the other guys. "Don't laugh, it was my fault. I threw it way too hard."

Jason shook his head, "You couldn't have thrown it that hard, Connor's just a pu-"

Mr. Lee blew his whistle at that point, cutting the bully off. When he blew the whistle, we all had to gather around him and the last people in would have to do pushups. Which really sucked because I was both slow and I couldn't do pushups.

This time, though, I wasn't last, because the new girl didn't know that and took a long time to catch on. Mr. Lee told her, "When I blow my whistle, that means everyone needs to come in, okay? Usually the last person in has to do pushups, but because you're new you don't have to. Okay?"

"Okay," she replied, still fairly quiet.

After that, he explained what we were doing next. Two mini-games, switching out the teams at five-minute intervals, for the remaining half hour or so of class. Good, at least we were almost over. I ended up with a few of the less mean guys and the super-hot girl I could never talk to, and I pretty much drifted through the rest of the class. We placed third, probably because I was negative two players.

But I just had this weird feeling about Ruby, the new girl, that stayed until class ended and after. It wasn't that thing called love, was it? I didn't like her, did I? No, this was just curiosity... and confusion.

There was just something strange about her I couldn't place. It was probably just my overactive imagination, though.

* * *

><p><em><strong>Vicki Lee<strong>_

None of us really liked our business class. We'd all decided to take it, mostly to be together, but also because the course description sounded cool. That turned out to be a mistake, because the class was super super boring.

I did find some parts of it interesting, but none of my friends seemed to, so none of us really paid much attention to it. I mean, we did good enough, but we weren't really putting in our best work or even close to it.

Because of the stupid bus schedule, me and my friends were there five minutes early, waiting outside the door. I was wearing my new Dior handbag, and eagerly showing it off to a jealous Ann and Daffodil. Of course, Lisa had an even more expensive one from her rich grandparents, but it was still a partial victory.

"Hey, who's that?" Lisa asked, pointing condescendingly to a confused girl strutting down the hallway toward us.

By confused, I don't mean the look on her face. That was impassive and confident. The way she walked, the way she carried herself just screamed rich bitch. Like, really rich should be going to private school bitch, not us cream of the bad crop that was regular school girls.

But the way she dressed was atrocious. She had what looked like a light blue T-shirt mostly hidden under a cream-grey wool jacket, along with a flared white skirt that looked like she bought it at Wal-Mart. Her wedge heels weren't tall enough to make up for her short stature and I'm pretty sure the grey leather was fake. It was about as low-class as you could get.

And she had dyed her long, flowing hair white. Nobody dyes their hair white anymore! At least it kind of went with her very pale skin.

I'd never seen her before, or never noticed her before, at least. She turned toward us, like she was going to introduce herself.

"I'm Anna," she introduced. "Anna Weiss."

"I don't care who you are," Lisa snapped at her. I felt a little bit bad about it, but if I felt kind of condescendingly toward the new girl then Lisa probably thought she was way beneath us.

For a brief moment, I thought I saw a strange look cross her face. "Well, I suppose the feeling is mutual."

While we were bantering, Ms. Patil had arrived and unlocked the room. She was a short Indian lady- not that it's a bad thing. I thought she was okay, but not great. She seemed to know what she was doing but she rambled a lot. But she was easy, with not a lot of assignments and generous grading on the ones we did have to hand in.

Thankfully, Anna hadn't taken our spots, although she was fairly close to us. My disgust had turned to curiosity at this point, and I asked her, "Are you new here?"

"Yes," she replied after a moment of hesitation.

"I'm Vicki," I told her. "These are my friends Daffodil, Irene, and Lisa."

"Where are you from, Anna?" Lisa asked, an edge to her voice.

"North Vancouver," she replied quickly. "But I live close by in Burnaby now."

"You dyed your hair white?" Daffodil asked.

She shrugged. "Yes, it's actually my, favourite colour."

"Of course it is," I muttered.

Anna looked like she was going to say something not so nice to me when the teacher cleared her throat, interrupting us. She began, "Good morning class. We have a new student today, so please try to give her a good welcome. Miss?"

Beside me, the girl stood up. "Hello. My name is Anna Weiss. I'm new to the school."

"Sprechen sie Deutsch?" the German exchange student asked, barely letting Anna finish her sentence.

The white-haired girl shook her head. "No, and neither did my parents."

Ms. Patil smiled at Anna as she sat back down, before continuing, "Today we will be starting the types of corporations. Now let's get down to business."

I rolled my eyes at the horrible joke she had to make at the beginning of every class. Down to business, indeed.

I was curious about the new girl. She stood out. Maybe I should have just dismissed her and ignored her, but there was something weird about her.

I wondered if anyone else felt the same way.

* * *

><p><em><strong>Gavin Lloyd<strong>_

Usually, English 12 was just kind of _there_. I showed up- usually, mostly didn't pay attention, put in a token effort and I was getting ten percent more than I needed to pass.

Today was actually slightly interesting for once. There were two new girls who stepped into the class about a minute before it was supposed to start. The one in front was the shorter of the two, with black hair and skin a shade darker than the other girl. She gave off an air of sophistication or something, except for the hat.

The hat was a little weird. Technically, we weren't allowed to wear hats, but nobody actually enforced the rule. The hat she wore didn't fit her at all- it was a toque that I might wear when it was cold or I needed to rob a bank. Not something bookish or fancy. I wondered if she had horrible scars or some shit under there.

If the first girl gave a kind of quiet not-quite-nerd impression, the other girl was pretty much the opposite. She is smoking hot, like really fucking hot. She's got long, flowing blonde hair kinda sorta tied up into a ponytail, big boobs, a nice ass, and an outfit that shows it all off. I could have sworn it got a few degrees warmer as she walked in.

She's also aware, catching me staring and winking at me with a crystal blue eye.

The guy beside me- Jason, I think his name was- poked me. He pointed really obviously to the hot girl and asked me, "Hey, does she look kind of familiar to you?"

I thought about it a bit. She did look a bit familiar, maybe like a celebrity or something, but I couldn't place it. "Maybe. I dunno, man."

While we were talking, the hot girl passed me by, following the girl with the hat. They sat together near

the back of the class.

Seconds later, literally seconds later, Mr. Johnson came in. I could make the obvious dick joke, but I mean seriously, this guy is a douchebag. He looks like a douchebag with his weird-ass sweaters and overly stylish glasses. He sounds like a douchebag talking about the human condition and shit. He even moves like a douchebag.

Then again, he said he had a wife and kids, so maybe he's not actually gay, just metrosexual. He's not Asian enough for it, though.

"Good morning, students," he lisped. Did I mention he talks with a lisp? "I hope you all had an interesting weekend. Maybe you discovered something, maybe not, you know, not every day has to be a revelation, although one could argue that everything is a revelation."

Thankfully, he cut his own rambling short, thank all that is holy. "But speaking of new experiences, we have two new students today. Could you introduce yourself?"

After sharing a look with her friend, the girl in the hat reluctantly stood up and quietly said, "I'm Bella Blake."

"Tell us something interesting about yourself, Bella," Mr. Johnson pressed.

"I like to chase sparkly vampires," my neighbour said in a very bad imitation of Bella's voice. I should have seen that one coming.

She glared at him, narrowing her brown eyes in almost a catlike way.

"What? Come on! It was funny."

"I know you're just having fun, but keep in mind that not everyone comes from the same background." As usual, Mr. Johnson managed to turn an admonishment into philosophical bullshit. "What's considered offensive can be very different. Please, Bella, do tell us something."

"I uh..." I noticed her eyes dart around like she was looking for a place to escape. There's no escape from this class, just an hour of bullshit better left ignored. "I like books."

"What kind of books?" our effeminate teacher asked, curious. "Tell us what you're reading right now, Bella."

"Let The Trumpet Sound," she replied quietly, reluctantly. "It's about Martin Luther King."

"A very interesting, very influential, very multifaceted man," the teacher mused. "You could spend an entire lifetime just studying that man, understanding what made him who he was."

He turned to the other girl as Bella sat down again. She took it as her cue to stand up and introduced herself. "I'm Linda. I sometimes go by Yang. Either one's okay."

"Yang? That's Chinese for the sun, is it not?" Mr. Johnson asked.

"Yeah," one of the Chinese kids in the front muttered, loud enough for me to hear.

"I've gone by it since I was five," the girl added.

"Interesting," our teacher mused. "And tell us something interesting about yourself."

She shrugged casually, ponytail and boobs bouncing with the motion. "I'm a boxer."

I suppressed the urge to laugh and sort of made it. She looked like a model, not a boxer. I've seen boxers, and even the girls are a lot more muscular than that. Kickboxing- no, she wasn't built for it. Maybe she could put out a nasty hit, once, but no way she could take one.

"Hmm... there's an interesting issue there," Mr. Johnson mused. Yes, I'm not exaggerating, this was what he actually does. "At what point does a sport become violence? Is a violent sport really violent? Is it acceptable?"

"I enjoy it," Linda casually protested.

The teacher nodded. "And that is an argument in and of itself."

"Fuck..." my neighbour muttered. I nodded in agreement.

Then Mr. Johnson finally started doing actual teaching. I don't know how much time we wasted, but, eh, it was time we didn't have to do actual work. He introduced what we were doing to the new arrivals first. "We're reading a book called The Things They Carried. Written by Tim O'Brian, a veteran of the Vietnam war. It's a loose collection of stories about the Vietnam War that straddles the line between fiction and nonfiction. Do you have the book yet?"

"No, we don't," Bella said for both of them. I guess they were friends.

"That's okay, you can look at a neighbour's, and I might have an extra. How much do you know about the Vietnam War?"

I tuned him out as he started talking about war and morality and other bullshit, spending the rest of the class doodling in my notebook and sneaking glances at Linda.

Actual boxer or not, I knew who I wanted to get to know.


	2. Lunch Break

The pacing will be slow at first, but it will start to pick up later. I see this fic as more of a collection of loosely-connected single- and multi-chapter arcs than a single cohesive story.

I'm still playing with the story format and tone and I will continue to do so for several chapters. It could take a while to get into the groove so to speak; I haven't done any stories like this before.

This chapter kind of evolved organically- I just started from a starting point and went with it. Usually I plan out more, but I didn't even have an endpoint in mind this time. Was it good or bad?

With all that being said, I do have several scenes and even plot arcs in mind already.

Although it was named once and may be named again, the high school is not meant to depict any specific school. Any resemblance to the actual school of the same name is probably coincidental because I've never been there. Come to think of it, I should probably include a disclaimer.

* * *

><p><span><strong>2: Lunch Break<strong>

Four girls sat together near the edge of the high school cafeteria. One had black hair streaked with red and might be described as almost, but not quite, boyish. One had snow white hair and dressed in clothes that were cheap knockoffs of what was expensive and fashionable. One covered her black hair with a knit cap that looked out of place on her. One had long, flowing blonde hair and showed off her ample assets while just barely complying with the dress code.

Some may have felt there was something odd about the group. Perhaps a more perceptive individual with the right background might even realize who they looked like. But if anyone made the association, it was quashed as a mere coincidence as soon as it came up.

"Wow, I'm glad we packed lunch," Yang Xiao Long remarked dryly, motioning to the cafeteria line. It was backed up into the hallway for a good ten metres.

"Yeah," Ruby Rose agreed before asking her team, "So, how was everyone's first two classes? Weiss?"

"Really? It's only been half a day!" Weiss Schnee complained, raising an eyebrow. "And you should probably call me be my _first_ name."

"Anna, how was your morning?" the red-haired team leader repeated.

"Well, first I had business. I'm still not sure what it's about, but I managed to have a few minutes of awkward conversation with the local group of pretentious, rich, entitled-" Catching her team's snickers, she snapped, "I know. The irony is not lost on me."

"Did you get along?" Blake Belladonna asked.

"Not really."

"Blake?" Ruby asked, ignoring the fact that Weiss had only described her first class.

"It was fine," she answered.

"Come on, Blake," Ruby whined.

Blake sighed. "All the guys were eyeing up Yang in English, and someone made a Twilight joke about my name."

"That's a good cover," Ruby mentioned after a moment. She explained, "I mean, you prefer Blake to Bella because you hate Twilight."

"Hmm... that's actually a good idea." She was still surprised by how deceptively insightful the younger girl could be sometimes.

And how oblivious. After several seconds, Ruby asked, "Wait, did you say that the boys were looking at my sister?"

Yang hesitantly cracked a smile. "They just can't resist my massive... hotness."

"Hey," a baritone voice called. The blonde brawler turned to see a familiar face attached to a tough, muscular body.

"Speak of the devil," Blake muttered, hiding behind her book.

"I'm Gavin," the young man introduced, smiling cockily at Yang. "You're Linda, right? The new girl in English?"

"Guilty as charged," she replied, a hint of forcedness in her light tone.

"Yeah... hey, I could give you a tour of the school, show you were everyone hangs out, that kind of-"

"Maybe some other time," Yang said, cutting him off.

Gavin looked disappointed and failed to hide it. "Oh, well, okay, then. Later."

"He obviously likes you," Blake pointed out.

"No, it's just a stupid crush," her partner dismissed. "He only likes me for my body. It'll never go anywhere."

"I thought you relished that kind of thing," Blake pointed out.

"Come on, Yang!" Ruby whined before Yang could respond to her partner. "Maybe he's really nice."

"It's our first day," Yang protested.

"I met Weiss on our first day at Beacon!" Ruby said a little too loudly.

"There are so many things wrong with that comparison," the heiress grumbled.

"Remember when you said I should make other friends at Beacon?" Ruby gently reminded her sister.

"Fine, we'll try to make some new friends," Yang compromised, finishing her sandwich. "As a team."

They stood up and walked across the cafeteria, with Ruby in the lead. Gavin was with a few other guys, most of them looking as tough as he did. Two of them were Asian, though none of the girls could decipher which of the many ethnicities they belonged to. From the bits of conversation they could catch, the group was talking about some sport.

"Hey," Yang called.

"across the- oh, hey," Gavin said awkwardly. "So, about that tour..."

She shook her head. "Maybe we can hold off on that tour, but you barely introduced yourself. And I didn't introduce any of my... friends."

She continued without a pause, more confidently this time. "This my sister Ruby- she's in Grade 10. And that's Anna Weiss and Bella Blake."

"You were in English too, right?" Gavin asked Blake.

The covert cat faunus nodded. "That's right."

One of the asians, a bulky young man wearing a T-shirt that showed off his muscles, laughed.

Ruby narrowed her eyes at him. "What are you laughing about?"

He shook his head. "Nothing, just reminds me of a web series that I'm the only one who watches."

Gavin told them, "Yeah, Aaron's a total, uh, otacon?"

"Otaku," Aaron corrected. Seeing the girls' confused looks, he explained. "I like Japanese anime and manga and that sort of stuff."

"Yeah, he's probably thinking about some shitty anime right now," Gavin laughed.

"Technically, this one is made in Texas, so it's not really anime," Aaron corrected.

The four members of Team RWBY shared a look. Aaron continued to ask, "Do you really go by Yang?"

"Hey, I did it ten years earlier, thank you very much!" Yang jokingly protested, forcing the most sincere smile she could onto her face.

The guys, thankfully, laughed with them. Before the conversation could get any more awkward, Gavin told them, "Hey, we're on the football team, and I was wondering if you've got nothing else to do, maybe you'd like to, uh,"

"Join? Not really." Though the 5'2", lightly built Ruby was being completely serious, they laughed and the four girls quickly joined them.

"Yeah, but seriously though, we've got a game after school tomorrow, and it's just a, uh, kind of a warmup, but if you want to watch, well, we'll be there, and we're gonna kick ass!"

"Sure, why not?" Ruby replied.

"Great, see you there, then," Gavin said, smiling. "Remember, we're the Gladiators, so cheer on the right team!"

"Got it."

"Alright, we're gonna hit the gym," Aaron added as they walked away. "See you later."

"See? We've already made friends!" Ruby told her team cheerfully.

Weiss folded her arms. "I think they were just recruiting us as fans."

"Maybe there's something there," Blake allowed.

Yang muttered tensely, "I would actually not mind hitting something right now."

At the other end of the hallway, Gavin suddenly punched Aaron in the arm.

"What was that for?" Aaron protested, inwardly wincing at the pain but refusing to show it.

"Just reminds me of a web series nobody watches," Gavin recited. "Man, it's no wonder you don't have a girlfriend."

"I'm waiting for the right one," Aaron snapped back, harsher than he meant to. "You're the one who bounces between crushes like they're disposable."

"Hey, guys," Darrel, one of the other members of their small group, interrupted. "Everyone's different, you know?"

"Sure." Gavin shrugged before turning more serious. "I dunno, that hot blonde seemed kind of different."

"Because she's fucking Yang Xiao Long?" Aaron wasn't sure to what degree he was joking.

"See what I mean? Dude, you watch way too much anime," Gavin told him again, before softening. "Hey, it's not a bad thing. Lots of girls like that shit. Just, you know, stop pretending they're actually from anime."

He added, "Besides, I thought Yang was supposed to be the really outgoing one? Our Yang seems to be a bit more reserved."

"Yeah, I guess," Aaron admitted.

"I still have first dibs on her, though," Gavin reminded his friend as they stepped into the weight room.

* * *

><p>Firehawk242: They're going to have an... interesting time.<p>

Reine de la Mort: The OCs may come across as initially grating, but there's a lot more to them than it seems, and this is something I've done more or less deliberately.

Fourze: Never seen/read/played it.

Tatopatato: Emergence had a loose schedule, this story has none at all. I'll try for at least one chapter a week, but it will pretty much end up as it comes out when it comes out.

Animelvr975: Weiss actually almost said that it was her natural colour but switched it to favourite colour at the last moment. She did stutter but Vicki did not pick up on it.

The Layman: Without spoiling too much, the OCs have a lot more to them than a cardboard cutout stereotype. Yes, even Jason.

onerustybucket: Maybe, maybe not. I'm not sure about shipping, to be honest. If it happens, it happens, but I'm not going to force it. Gavin is not a massive douche, just a bit judgemental... or a lot judgemental. He really doesn't like his English teacher, and having had similar such teachers, I can both understand and disagree with his position.

Guest: Pretty much random and I'm uncreative with names.

Natsu d uzumaki: Not long, but would you believe it even if it was true?

ODST110: Canadians were not involved in Vietnam. It is (was?) studied in Social Studies 11 in the context of Canada-US relations and the strain it caused on them. However, the book in question, The Things They Carried, is the one I read in Grade 12 English, and I think it's more about just happening to be about the Vietnam War than being chosen for it. I'm terrible with both fashion and names, so some of that is my fault.


	3. Afternoon

If I were to do it again, I would have done this arc differently, with smaller slices throughout the day. I think there will be one more chapter in this "first day" mini-arc. Then game day, then Halloween. I'm looking forward to the latter especially.

By the way, I'm still updating the Asides alongside this story.

* * *

><p><span><strong>3: Afternoon<strong>

The class right after lunch was the only one they had together, Social Studies 11. They figured this out when they all started heading in the same direction.

"Hey, we have the same class!" Ruby remarked redundantly.

"This feels like a mistake," Blake told her.

The younger girl blinked. "Why?"

"We'll stand out," she replied. "We should at least not sit together."

"But we're a team," the crimsonette protested.

"Not here," Weiss reminded her. "We should at least sit out of order, or in a square."

Ruby thought about it for a moment. "Okay. I'll sit with Blake behind you and Yang."

They filed into the classroom with the other students. One of them poked Yang in the shoulder as they filed in. She almost punched him in the face before calming down, a brief red flash concealed behind her contact lenses.

She turned toward the poker, a blonde and scraggly boy that looked a bit like a shorter, wimpier Jaune. "Did you just poke me?"

He quickly replied, "Sorry, I, uh, don't know your name. You're new to the class, right? I'm Harold."

"I'm Yang, Anderson," she replied, quickly adding, "I mean, my real name is Linda, but I go by Yang. It's Chinese for the sun, like my amazing hair."

She sat down beside Weiss near the back corner of the room, and Harold sat down beside her. He chuckled. "Yeah, it's not weird, I mean, I'm Harold with two r's, and my last name is Yeung, but I'm totally white."

"How did that happen?" Weiss asked, leaning in front of Yang.

Harrold shrugged. "I dunno, actually. I think my grandpa's from Hong Kong or something."

The teacher, a balding man with greying hair, stepped into the room and set an old leather briefcase on the table beside the projector at the front of the room. "Hey, Polish K is here."

"Polish K?"

"Have you had him before?"

"We're new to the school," Yang told him.

"Ah, well, Polish K's a riot."

"Why do you call him Polish K?" Weiss asked.

"Good, uh, afternoon, class," the teacher began with a very heavy accent. "Today we have new student. Uh, I am sorry, you should probably introduce yourself, I am terrible with name."

Ruby stood up first, shooting up violently and pushing her desk-chair a good foot backwards in the process. "Hi, I'm Ruby!"

"Red like roses," a girl with glasses muttered from beside Ruby.

Weiss glared at her. "Not funny."

"And what about you, with white hair." The teacher motioned to Weiss. "You are albino, or really seventy years old? That is not natural, is it?"

She didn't find it funny. "No, it's dye. I'm Anna Weiss. I don't speak German."

"Ah, too bad," Polish K mentioned. "I was once okay fluent with the German, but not anymore."

"Blake."

"First name or last?" the girl with the glasses asked.

"Last name," she replied. "My name is Bella, but I don't really like that name anymore, because of a _certain vampire novel_."

"And the hat?" the teacher asked, mostly curious.

"No," Blake snapped. "I don't want to talk about it."

"Sorry," he apologized, realizing there was probably a reason she wore it.

"I'm Yang," the last member of RWBY introduced. "I mean, my real name is Linda, but I go by Yang because it's Chinese for the sun, like my fab hair."

There was a chorus of laughter, except for the girl with the glasses, who muttered something unintelligible.

"I am Mr. Krawczyk," the teacher introduced for the first time. "It's okay, nobody can pronounce it, so Mr. K is fine. I was once from Poland, so my English is sometimes not good."

"Today we are finishing up the unit on Canadian government and starting twentieth century history." He turned to the girls. "I will give you four packages on that unit, which might be hard but if you know how to find information it's not so hard."

"Okay," Ruby replied.

"I think the twentieth century is the most interesting history we do in school," Mr. Krawczyk opined. "This is when we stop thinking about ancient history that doesn't effect us- well, it does, but it is not obvious- and into things that we still see today. For Canada it does feel a bit, uh, detach, but in Poland, we witness history. But it is the same history, and the twentieth century is when world history really becomes the history of everyone and not a sort of, uh, a broad overview..."

* * *

><p>Halfway across the school, thirty athletic young men had a very different class in the gym.<p>

Their class was Team Sports 12, derided by many as nothing more than extra practice for the football team. It wasn't quite accurate. It was, in effect, extra practice for the football team, and the rugby team, and whatever other teams were playing at the time. Right now, it was, in fact football season, and football was what they were doing, to the annoyance of the few other people taking the course. It was a term course, and soon it would switch to a new group and a new focus sport.

None of that went through the mind of Gavin Lloyd. He was entirely focused on passing a slightly-underinflated football to Aaron, getting the technique just right. But Aaron seemed distracted.

Finally, after watching his friend fumble three passes in a row, Gavin asked, "Come on, spit it out."

"Spit what out?" Aaron dismissed.

"Come on, man, those anime girls," Gavin reminded him. "I mean, you think they're anime girls. I think you watch too much anime."

"The names are all the same-"

Gavin shook his head. "They share one name each, except Linda, who uses Yang as a nickname, probably before that anime even made it over here."

"Okay, first of all, it's called RWBY," Aaron huffed. "Second, it's not anime. It's an American web animation."

"You're missing my point," Gavin insisted. "Those names are common. What else about them catches your eye, eh?"

"Blake's hat," he replied immediately. "In the show, Blake wears a bow to hide her cat ears. Why else would she be wearing a toque everywhere?"

Gavin shrugged. "Maybe she just likes it. Or maybe it's something really bad, you know, like all her hair's burned off and there's a shitload of-"

"Okay, okay!"

"So the names are a coincidence, the hat is explainable," Gavin continued. "What else?"

"They look like Team RWBY," Aaron told him. "I mean, if you squint a little, and imagine them in different outfits."

"Of course you would imagine them in _different_ outfits," Gavin prodded.

"That's not what I meant!"

Gavin sighed. "There was this girl in Pre-Calc last year, her last name was Paris. She looked like Paris Hilton, twenty years younger, no shit. She did it on purpose, man. Everyone thought it was funny as all hell."

"But they're all friends! They're all new to the school, they all hang out together. They're like a team!" Aaron protested, throwing his arms apart.

"So, it's a coincidence," Gavin said, tossing the ball up and down. "Think about it, man. Anime characters don't just pop up in real life. It's just a coincidence. Maybe a really cool one, but just a coincidence."

"Yeah, I know," Aaron sighed. "I know."

"Come on, man, give it up."

"Sure." Aaron grinned, motioning for his friend to pass the ball. "Maybe I'm crazy."

"Hey, talk to them, get to know them," Gavin suggested seriously, tossing the ball back over in a near-perfect pass. "Maybe they're not really anime characters, but that doesn't mean they're nobody, you know what I mean?"

"Yeah, yeah," Aaron said, catching the pass. "You're right, man, you're right."

* * *

><p>"Well, that was interesting," Yang commented to her partners, stepping out of the classroom.<p>

"That's one way of describing it," Weiss complained. "I did not understand a single thing he said."

"Ugh, this booklet is so thick," Ruby moaned, flipping the paper between her fingers. "But I have engineering next! I'm not really sure what we're going to do but it sounds awesome!"

"I have English," Weiss said neutrally. "We'll see if Mr. Johnson is as bad as you say he is."

"You might say he's a real... dick," a familiar voice said.

Weiss whipped around, facing Aaron face to face. "What... you!"

He raised his hands, "Hey, sorry. I just have the same class and I saw you going the wrong way, so, uh..."

"Forget it," Weiss snapped. "But I suppose you're right, I was going the wrong way."

She turned to half-follow Aaron, leaving Ruby with her sister and Blake. They continued to follow Ruby toward the shop wing, before Blake mentioned, "Uh, I don't think we need to go up here."

Ruby smacked herself in the face. "Right, we don't have all the same classes. I keep thinking we're headed to Grimm Studies. What do you have?"

Blake and Yang sighed at the same time. "Foundations of Mathematics 11."

"Heh. Have fun, sis, Blake!" Ruby waved to them as they turned back and headed down toward their math classroom.

She continued down the hall and into the engineering classroom. It was a strange hybrid between a computer lab and a metalwork shop, with stationary machinery on one side, computer work stations on the other, other work stations at the back and a lecture area at the front.

Her attention was immediately drawn by all the devices and machines, the purposes of which she had no idea of, scattered throughout the room. "Wow..."

* * *

><p>"Hey, what's the story with Blake, uh, Bella?" Aaron asked the white-haired heiress as they walked toward class. He noticed that Weiss- <em>Anna<em>- strode powerfully and purposefully. _Like an heiress would._

"What about her?" Weiss snapped. She really didn't want to be with this guy right now. The one crazy guy in the school who had it figured out.

"Do you, uh, do you know why she wears that hat all the time?"

"No," Weiss lied smoothly. "I've never asked, and she's never told me."

"Oh," Aaron replied, disappointed.

"Why do you want to know?"

"No reason." Aaron asked awkwardly, "Listen, uh, Weiss, uh, what's your favourite colour?"

"Do you think with your brain or your cock?" Weiss snapped rudely. She inwardly winced at the pedestrian language she'd carefully chosen.

"Hey, I'm asking what your favourite colour is, not if you're taken," Aaron replied, raising his hands in mock defence. "Wouldn't hurt to answer, would it, Snow Angel?"

Ignoring the painful reminder of a certain blonde idiot, Weiss answered, "It's white, and Snow Angel, really?"

"Don't like Snow Angel?" Aaron antagonized. He was deliberately trying to get some sort of clue out of Weiss, and she knew it.

She forced a smile. "No, actually, it's... fitting, I guess."

"You like it?" Aaron asked before remembering something. "I guess it depends who says it, huh."

"No, not really," Weiss replied, knowing exactly what he was referencing. She stopped suddenly, and Aaron nearly plowed into her.

"Why did you do that?" the football player asked.

"We've passed the classroom," she told him. "Three times. I'm not interested, okay?"

With that, she retraced her steps halfway down the hallway and stepped into the classroom. There was an empty seat surrounded by occupied seats near the front of the room, which she immediately took. Aaron, dejected, sat on the other side of the room.

"Apologies for my tardiness," the teacher said, breezing into the room. "Ah, yes, we have a new student. I'm Mr. Johnson, unfortunately I have to teach English but I think we can learn so much more. Please, go ahead and introduce yourself."

Reluctantly, Weiss stood up. "Hello. I'm Anna Weiss."

"Hmm. How long has your family been here, Anna? Do you speak any German?"

"They were here for several generations, and no," she said curtly.

"That's too bad," he replied, catching her slightly off phrasing and its implication. "Tell us something interesting about yourself, Anna."

"I'm..." She searched her brain for a reasonable answer. Something she could get called on later, so it had to be partially honest. But it had to be appropriate for Earth. They hadn't taught them how to answer that kind of question. "A fencer."

"Hmm, interesting," the teacher remarked, chewing his lip. "We had a new girl this morning who said she was a boxer. What was her name- ah yes, Linda, or Yang. Chinese for sun. An interesting choice."

_Of course she said she was a boxer_, Weiss thought idly. She realized that her teammate probably didn't even think about it, just answered on automatic.

He switched mental gears. "Well, I suppose we should get started. We're going to read a book called The Things They Carried, but we're a bit behind the other class so we haven't started yet. A serendipitous coincidence... we'll be getting our books from the library today..."

"I told you this class sucks," Aaron whispered to Weiss from across the room. She groaned in response.

* * *

><p>The teacher, a tall, thirty-something woman of Asian descent, was waiting for Blake and Yang students just inside the door of their classroom.<p>

"You must be Bella and Linda," she said, stopping them with a smile that looked more forced than not.

"I usually go by my last name."

"Sometimes I go by Yang, but really either one is fine."

"Blake and Yang?" the teacher asked, slightly confused.

"I hate Twilight."

"It's Chinese for sun. Like my fab hair."

The teacher smiled awkwardly. "Right. I'm Ms. Hahn. This is the Foundations of Mathematics 11 class. You've already missed half of it and that could be problematic."

She produced a pair of large stapled booklets. "These are review booklets for the first half of the course. I want you to get through them as quickly as you can, but don't rush through it. It's important that you get through them

"Thank you, Ms. Hahn," Blake said for both of them. They took the last two seats, fortunately beside each other at the back of the class.

Ms. Hahn stepped toward the front of her class, fumbling with the projector cable and her school-provided convertible laptop. Like many other teachers at the school, she had moved most of her lessons into the digital realm. Like many other teachers at the school, that meant little more than using the Wacom digitizer in her X201 tablet instead of an overhead projector.

Meanwhile, the two new students were poring over their booklets, ignoring the curious looks of their new classmates. They immediately became concerned when they saw what was in them.

"You know how I didn't go to regular school?" Blake whispered to Yang.

"Because of your thing, right?" Yang whispered.

"Yes," she replied quietly. She motioned to her review package. "We didn't exactly do math."

"Hey, I faked my way through," the blonde replied. "I don't know what this is either. Maybe Weiss can help us-"

"I know you're probably really nervous since it's your new day, but we have a lot to get through and I have to begin the lecture," Ms. Hahn scolded gently, reminding the two that class was supposed to have started. "Okay, class, we have two new students, Blake and Yang. Now, we'll be starting inverse functions today..."

"We are so screwed," Yang whispered to her partner. Blake simply nodded in agreement.

* * *

><p>ODST110: I've had similar teachers, and they're great if you like their teaching style and discussions, and incredibly annoying if you don't. Gavin falls into the latter category. All of them have different outfits and hairstyles. Yang and Blake have contact lenses that change the colour of their eyes.<p>

Firehawk242: RWBY feats are all over the place, and we don't know how much is Aura/Semblances and how much is their natural physique or if they're even distinct. I've thrown out the lowest and highest end estimates and come to a sort of compromise. For this story, Remnans are significantly stronger and faster than Terrans, but not orders of magnitude so. This without Aura or anything like that- adding that changes it up again. Even still, Yang would be one hell of a football player if they let her play. Ruby might be... even better, actually, since she's faster.

Tatopatato: Given the change from anime style and deliberate changes in appearance (hairstyle and clothing can make a big difference), it would be a hard sell unless you really know what you're looking for. As for Blake's hat, there are many reasons for wearing a hat all the time that would make one hesitant to remove it.

linkthetoaoftime: On Earth, you can generally, though not always, tell how strong someone is by looking at their body... get your head out of the gutter. This is not true on Remnant. They're big football players. Yang is probably the toughest looking of RWBY and she's still pretty lightly built. Naturally, they're not going to think a lot of them physically. There are more implications to this, but it's tired and I'm posting this before I'm late at night.


	4. First Day Done

This is the conclusion of what's more or less the first arc. Maybe not the best conclusion, or the best arc, but to reiterate, this loosely-plotted, slice-of-life stuff is far from what I'm used to, and this is realyl my first foray into it.

After doing the first chapter first person, I've abandoned it in favour of third person, but the first-person perspective might come back later.

This is definitely a fun story to write. It's much more loosely written, so to speak, and I don't have to worry about juggling plot threads too much.

* * *

><p><span><strong>4: First Day Done<strong>

"Key, Ruby," Yang reminded her sister as the team huddled together on the porch of their house.

"Right." Ruby stopped trying to grab her scroll- phone, she corrected herself- and unlocked the door with her key. They rushed inside and slammed the door shut behind them.

"Home sweet home," Yang muttered drearily.

The foyer opened up to a living room on the left with the kitchen and dining area behind it. To their right was the garage, currently empty except for a few boxes. Behind it was the downstairs bathroom and bedroom. A staircase led from the foyer to the upper storey, where there were more bedrooms and the second bathroom.

They'd only been living there for a few days, and they had only the bare essentials- even some of that was missing.

Yang collapsed onto the couch, a brand new, if inexpensive, piece of furniture. She flicked on the TV, a 50 inch Panasonic unit. The news was on, a story about the tension in Ferguson that was still present even though the riots had stopped.

"So ignorant," Blake muttered, sitting down beside her.

"Ughh..." Ruby moaned, flopping onto the other couch.

"I didn't think you could run out of energy," Weiss remarked to her partner.

"Neither did I," the crimsonette replied.

In a more dignified fashion, Weiss sat down beside her. "I suppose the first day is always the hardest."

"Let's just watch something silly," Yang suggested tiredly. "I don't want to do anything today."

* * *

><p>The girls were torn away from their almost-finished movie by a loud knock at the door. Yang bolted up, ready to fight.<p>

"It's just the door," her partner gently reminded her.

"Yeah." She sat down, allowing her sister to zip over and answer the door.

She recognized the men at the door as their "handler", Harry Iverson, and two of the men from the support team across the street. Iverson held up a stack of pizza boxes. "We brought dinner."

"It's dinnertime already?" Ruby asked, surprised. She stepped out of the way, letting them in, and closed the door behind them.

"It's thirty past six!" Weiss called from the living room.

"I would be lying if I said this wasn't a debriefing," Iverson began as they settled in. He noted that even the supposedly refined Weiss Schnee dug into the pizza quickly and voraciously. "As you are aware, you are being recorded, and we will review the recording."

He paused. "However, this is not a formal debrief, and I want you to be as honest and open as you can."

"Okay," Ruby replied amicably. "What do you want to know?"

"How was your day?" Iverson asked simply.

"It was okay," she replied. "Science I didn't really understand, but I saw a lot of cool stuff in engineering and I wasn't careful enough in PE and now some mean guys think Connor is a wimp-"

"Let's start with science," Iverson said, slowing her down. "What were you doing and why didn't you understand it?"

"Something about mixtures of chemicals or something," she replied. "The teacher said I needed to do review and gave me this big booklet."

The CSIS officer noted that the booklet was probably still in Ruby's bag, left with the others at the edge of the living room. "You mentioned something happened in PE?"

"Yeah, we were throwing balls- I think they're called basketballs- and I passed to a guy but I didn't do it properly and I threw it too hard," Ruby told him, embarrassed. "It was painful for the boy who caught it and these other boys laughed at him because they thought he was wimpy."

"Try to be more careful in the future, Ruby," Iverson gently chided.

"I know. I will."

He turned his attention to her partner. "What about you, Miss Schnee?"

"I met some privileged, pretentious rich girls that I once would have befriended for political reasons, but chose to ignore," Weiss replied simply. "That was in business class, which provided very little information on how business is actually conducted on your world."

She continued, "Pre-Calculus is a fairly general study of algebra. In retrospect, you probably should have placed me into Pre-Calculus 12, or even Calculus 12, because I've done this before."

"You need to pass a Math 11 final to graduate."

"I understand." Weiss nodded before continuing, "Social Studies 11 was fascinating, though I could barely understand the instructor. And my English teacher seems more focused on philosophy than actually teaching the course."

She took a deep breath before allowing, "But I'll admit my prior experiences are unusual, even on Remnant. I studied at a small private academy before attending Beacon."

Blake didn't wait for a prompt. "I had English first, which Yang can tell you about. Then I had art. We didn't actually do much, but the teacher lectured about Rembrandt, which was interesting. I have the same Social Studies class as everyone else."

She paused. "I'm worried about math, though. I never had a formal education on Remnant. I think I'm okay with English, since I read a lot, and I'm in the same boat as everyone else for Social Studies, but math..."

"Don't worry, Blake, I forgot most of it so we're both in it together," Yang reassured her. "Besides, Weiss can help us with it, since she's so good at math."

"I suppose I owe you that much," Weiss admitted.

"Did anyone ask you about your hat?" Iverson interrupted with a bit of reluctance.

Blake replied in the affirmative. "Yes. I told them I didn't want to talk about it. I suppose I shouldn't be surprised that it worked."

"And what about your English class?" he asked Yang.

"There was a guy who kept staring at me, even more than usual," she replied. "Gavin, I think- he's a football player. But the class itself was a crappy lecture about some novel about a war."

"Yang didn't like the content of the lecture," Blake explained.

"My other classes were fine," Yang quickly continued. "I'm still confused about your cars, though. But Social Studies was useful even if the teacher was worse than Oobleck to listen to. And you already know about math."

"What about your interactions with others?" Iverson asked. "What did you do during lunch period?"

"Aaron," Weiss mentioned.

The CSIS officer echoed, "Aaron?"

"One of Gavin's football player friends," Yang explained, shrugging. "He knows about the show, but he didn't really call us out, just mentioned it."

Weiss shook her head. "I forgot to tell you, but I think he was trying to provoke me into... being Weiss."

"But you are Weiss!" Ruby reminded her, missing the point.

The heiress shook her head. "Not here."

"What did he do, exactly?" Iverson asked, mildly concerned.

"He asked about Blake's hat, so I told him I didn't know," she replied. "I also called him on trying to enter a romantic relationship with me- though I doubt he was and that was not the language I used-"

"What language did you use?" Yang asked, curious.

Weiss grimaced. "I told him he should stop thinking with his... cock."

Yang burst out laughing. "Didn't know you had it in you, Weiss."

The heiress went deep red. "Why- excuse me?"

"That came out wrong!" Yang defended, cringing when she realized that she had just made a second double entendre.

Iverson cleared his throat. "Did anything else of note happen?"

"We got invited to watch a school football game," Ruby told him. "That's after school tomorrow."

"Do you plan on going?"

"We already said we would," Ruby admitted.

"You should go," Iverson told her. "I think it would be a good experience for you. To experience Earth's culture, or a small and insignificant part of it anyway."

He stood up to leave. "Before I leave, are there any other questions you have?"

"Is it going to be a problem?" Ruby asked hesitantly, concerned. "Are we... blown already?"

The CSIS officer shook his head. "No, I don't think so. This is the thing you could be absolutely right about, and still assume you're totally wrong."

"Okay," Ruby replied.

"Good night, everyone," Iverson told them as he left. "You should probably at least look at your review packages. You have a lot of catching up to do."

I know I haven't replied to guest reviews- FFn is doing funny things with them being approved and then not appearing for days. I'll get to them with the next chapter, I promise.

* * *

><p>Firehawk242: Remnant has been described as a world that operates on Rule of Cool. It's internally inconsistent and often doesn't make a lot of sense. Trying to get a reasonable estimate is quite difficult.<p>

linkthetoaoftime: Weiss has already changed quite a bit, but she's back to being guarded again because of the strange new environment. She'll loosen up over time, I think.

ODST110: I realized that shortly after I wrote it, but kept it anyway. I guess it's become kind of running gag at this point.


	5. Game Day

Though the story arcs aren't really independent, I think this chapter stands on its own; it's not connected to any other story arc. Although there's really not that much there.

I don't actually know much about football, so don't expect this to be good. Yes, high school football is a more elusive topic for me than how to acquire forged documents.

* * *

><p><span><strong>5: Game Day<strong>

"Well, this ought to be interesting," Yang said as she sat down beside her sister in the bleachers. It was cramped, especially for her.

It was an okay day for football. It was overcast and not that warm, but relatively dry. They had a good view from where they sat. The players were getting ready on the field below, but the game hadn't started yet.

"So... how does football work?" Ruby asked.

"Well, there's two teams, and there's a ball," her sister replied. "They have to get it to the other team's end of the field by running and passing. And the other team tries to stop them by blocking and tackling. I think the game stops occasionally and they switch, or something."

"Why is it called football, then?" the crimsonette asked, confused.

Yang shrugged. "I don't know. Apparently it's based on some other sport, or something, but the article was really confusing."

"You mentioned tackling," Blake remarked. "This sport sounds dangerous, especially for Earth humans."

"They have pads and helmets and stuff," Yang pointed out. "But now that you mention it, yeah, it's probably not very safe for them."

"Are all the players guys?" Ruby asked, noticing something for the first time.

"Almost all sports are separated by gender on Earth," Weiss reminded her. "I would expect football to be one of them especially."

Ruby raised a confused eyebrow. "Why?"

Weiss didn't get a chance to respond, because the announcer announced the start of the game immediately after. While the players gathered on the field, groups of girls in colourful uniforms waved frilly pom-poms around and shouted enthusiastically.

"Who are those people?" Weiss asked, confused.

"Cheerleaders," Blake replied. "They're supposed to get the crowd going, or something like that."

"So the guys play and the girls cheer," the heiress remarked. "Seems rather sexist for a supposedly enlightened world."

"You think this is bad?" Yang growled at her. "There are places on Earth where a woman can be stoned to death for going to a sports game at all. That's bad."

"Guys, can we please just enjoy the game?" Ruby protested. On the field, the players were getting ready to start playing, and the ball was set up in the middle by the referee.

The referee blew his whistle and one of the players tossed the ball to the player behind him, who took off down the field.

"Go Gladiators!" Ruby shouted. Her partner glared at her. She told her, "I'm just trying to get into the spirit."

"The other team has the ball, you dolt," Weiss pointed out.

"So? Then our team needs to get the ball back, right?"

"That's not how football works," Yang told her. "I think."

One of the players on the other team slammed into the runner, pushing him to the ground. The move was, in their eyes, rather anticlimactic. The referee blew his whistle and the game stopped.

Ruby was surprised. "What? Why did they stop?"

"I think this _is_ how the game works," Yang told her. "I think."

Ruby yawned loudly.

"Come on, Rubes, give it a chance!" her sister said lightly, elbowing her in the ribs.

The game continued for a while, with the ball being taken toward one end of the field and stopped. Then the ball was given to the other team and the process was repeated.

"This is actually a lot more boring than I expected," Yang remarked with a yawn. "I thought it would be this really violent, intense, awesome game."

"It's a matter of perspective," her partner told her. "It may be extremely intense and violent for an Earth sport."

"This game manages to be both brutish and unexciting," Weiss argued.

"Maybe it's an acquired taste?" Ruby suggested.

The game continued for a while, with neither team scoring. Then the ball went back to the Gladiators. It was about that time when Ruby finally realized which one of the players was Gavin, and she waved to him. He did not see the wave or wave back.

The ball was tossed to the quarterback, who then passed it halfway down the field. Kevin dodged an opposing player and caught it, continuing down the field toward the goal. One of the players almost tackled him, but only pushed him without pushing him over. He reached the end and slammed the ball on the ground.

"Touchdown!" Most of the crowd cheered in response.

"Yay! First goal!" Ruby shouted. "We're winning... well, they're winning... you know what I mean!"

"Still kind of boring," Yang said.

Ruby sighed in agreement. "Yeah."

* * *

><p>"That was awful," Weiss complained as the four girls shuffled out of the stands. The game had finished with the Gladiators winning 7-5, a victory that resulted in a lot of cheering and a slightly lesser amount of dejection.<p>

Ruby reminded, "We did win, though, so that's worth something, right?"

"We?" Weiss arched an eyebrow. "I didn't see you on the field."

"Our team, though," Ruby said. "It wasn't that bad, Weiss."

"It was mostly just boring," Yang said, shrugging.

"I think it could be fun with just a few changes," Ruby said. "Maybe it's just something you have to warm up to."

Blake nodded. "It's a strange game to us. I think is we understood it, we would have enjoyed it more."

"Hey," Gavin called from the other end of the parking lot. He had changed out of his football uniform, which was now in a large bag slung over his shoulder. He dropped the bag and strutted toward them. "You did make it out here. What did you think of the game?"

They shared a look. Ruby replied diplomatically, "It was interesting."

Gavin laughed. "Geez, it's like you've never seen a football game before."

The girls shared another uncomfortable look. "Uh..."

The football player sighed. "You don't even know how football works, do you?"

"Nope," Ruby admitted.

"I looked it up last night, but it didn't make sense," Yang elaborated.

"I'll tell you what, if the weather's decent, maybe we can show you how the game is played," Gavin offered.

"Are you asking me out?" Yang quipped.

Gavin shrugged, hiding his awkwardness. "Only if you want it."

Ruby replied for her, "Sure. Why not?"

Her sister groaned and rolled her eyes.

"It's a date, then," Gavin said, laughing. He turned and started heading back toward his car. "See you tomorrow."

"Well, that was a thing."

* * *

><p>Aaron was waiting for his friend when he got back to the car. "What's the holdup?"<p>

"You know those _anime girls_?" Gavin said, putting air quotes around _anime girls_. "I actually talked to them like a human."

"Let me guess, they don't know what football is?" Aaron deadpanned... although he might not have been joking.

"Dude, lots of people don't know how football is played," Gavin told his friend clapping him on the shoulder. "It's screwed up, but it does happen."

"Yeah. Sure."

"Hey, I offered to show them how the game is played," Gavin told his friend as they got into the car. "You want to help me? Maybe something good will happen..."

"Yeah. Sure." Aaron was more glum this time.

"Spit it out, man."

"I think both Blake and Weiss hate my guts now."

"What did you do this time?"

"I, uh, I might have provoked her to see if she would act like Weiss."

"Dude, you know that's not the way to get girls," Gavin told his friend. "Look, you're a good looking guy, you're on the goddamn football team. All you need is a little confidence and a little panache."

"No shit. Tell me about it." Aaron felt awkward and changed the topic. "Hey, what are we doing for Halloween?"

* * *

><p>Guest chapter 2 . Jan 4 : We'll see the original OCs again, but only occasionally and only in passing. The focus is now on RWBY primarily, with a secondary focus on the new OCs. And they are meant to be a lot deeper than it initially appears.<p>

Guest chapter 3 . Jan 4 : I'm not sure exactly what you're trying to say here. I will say this. Most people wouldn't know anything about RWBY and might notice that they're a bit odd, but wouldn't draw any sort of connection. The people who are familiar with the show would almost all dismiss it as an interesting coincidence. Aaron is a bit of a special case in that he's going on a flight of fancy, he knows it but wants to try to get a reaction anyway, against his (and Gavin's) better judgement.

Guests with Q's chapter 3 . Jan 5 :

1. Nobody outside of Gemstone knows who RWBY really is. School administrators and teachers were told that they are special, potentially dangerous, with tragic pasts, and given odd special instructions.

2. Most of the teachers are (very) loosely based on the various teachers and instructors I've had. Most of the students are inspired by, though not really based on, people I've met at school.

3. A combination of both. Experienced intelligence officers worked with the girls to build legends that they would be able to remember, would be satisfied with, and would do a decent job of hiding them.

4. Gemstone has a surveillance team in a nearby building, and they are wired into the feeds.

5. The New World took place on October 25 and they started going to school the following Monday. The Christmas special takes place when it should, in December. I have no idea when football season actually is, so do not use that to determine what the date is.

Keep on sending in questions, I (usually) enjoy answering them.

Firehawk242: That's still a lot higher than I can jump. Twitchy Yang is scary, and dealing with that will be a recurring story element, if not a plot arc.

Derox-1223: Yes and no. The plot, if you can call it that, will develop slowly.

Ghost of the Reaper: What do you dislike about my writing style? This fic is out of the norm of what I usually write, and I am having some trouble with it.

ODST110: I _might_.


	6. All Hallows Eve

I'm thinking this is going to be a 2-3 chapter arc. I've been thinking about this arc since this story's inception, so I'm excited to finally bring it out. Even if it doesn't turn out so great.

I'm sticking with third-person for now, but I'll probably write a bit from Aaron's point of view later on.

I don't trick-or-treating when you're in Grade 12 is common practice, but it's not unheard of. I knew a guy who kept going trick-or-treating into college.

Also, all I know about high school parties comes from movies and secondhand accounts.

And RWBY has my so thoroughly conditioned that I actually didn't realize that Snow White didn't have white hair until I looked it up.

* * *

><p><span><strong>6: All Hallows Eve... Eve<strong>

"I think you're a little old for that, Ruby," Weiss told her partner.

"But Weiss," the crimsonette whined, putting down her sandwich and pouting. "Free candy!"

She hurriedly added, "Besides, Connor is going, remember?"

The heiress rolled her eyes. "Didn't you tell me he was taking his little sister?"

"Yeah, but-"

"Come on, Weiss, it'll be fun!" Yang interrupted loudly, sitting down across from them with a tray of food. Blake followed a moment later.

"Yang, you're late!" Ruby complained to her sister, before reaching over and stealing a handful of fries.

"Math ran late," she said, shrugging. "Ms. Hahn wanted to go over some complicated triangle stuff with us."

"It was basic trigonometry," Blake corrected.

Weiss coughed. "Trick-or-treating. I'd have thought you of all people would be against this."

Yang sighed. "We can't be children forever. Sooner or later... and in some places it's always sooner. I just want to take advantage of it while I still can."

"Blake?" Weiss inquired.

"I really have no opinion," Blake said. She held _Let The Trumpet Sound_ in one hand and a fish stick in the other.

"That's two against one, Weiss, we're going!" Ruby exclaimed triumphantly.

"Fine," the heiress grumbled.

"Hey," Gavin called, approaching them. Or rather, approaching Yang, who he seemed to be focusing his attention on. "We're having a party tomorrow, wanna come?"

"Where is it?"

"My place," Gavin answered. "My little bro's taking my baby sister trick-or-treating, and the parents are going to be out for the next few days."

"Oh, you're Connor's brother!" Ruby realized, snapping her fingers. She finally noticed the resemblance. Though Gavin was much bigger and tougher looking and his hair was lighter, they had similar facial features.

"Yeah, believe it or not," Gavin replied with a smile.

"No, I see it now. So when is it?" Ruby asked. "The party, I mean."

"Well, Aaron and a couple of other guys are showing up at eight, but I don't think it's really going to get going for another couple hours, so..." Gavin shrugged, speaking more to Yang than Ruby.

"Do we need costumes?" Weiss asked, folding her arms.

He rolled his eyes. "It's a _Halloween_ party. I mean, you don't have to, but it'd be kind of lame to not dress up at least a little."

"Okay, we'll be there," Yang replied, then looked at Ruby, who flashed her a thumbs-up. "Yeah."

"Cool." Gavin left, presumably back to his own friends.

"Nu-uh!" Ruby waggled a greasy finger in front of Weiss. "If we start early, we'll still have hours of time to go trick-or-treating and still get to the party."

The heiress sighed and acquiesced. "Ugh, fine."

"I wonder what parties are like on Earth?" Yang mused.

* * *

><p>After school, Team RWBY met in the same spot they had for the past few days, on the edge of the school grounds by the road.<p>

"Okay, everyone's here, let's get moving!" Ruby urged as soon as everyone had showed up.

"We're going the wrong way," Weiss told her partner almost immediately. Normally they would go straight for the intersection and cross the street, beginning the half-hour walk home. Instead, Ruby was leading them in the opposite direction.

"No, we're going the right way," Ruby countered. "We need to go shopping for costume stuff. So we need to go to the Nanaimo station and then take the train to Metrotown."

"What?" Weiss objected. "Why wasn't I informed of this?"

"This is kind of random," Yang added. "But I'm okay with it."

Ruby fished in her hoodie pocket and handed them each a printed-out picture.

"You have got to be kidding me," Weiss muttered. "Snow White? A fairytale?"

"Yep! Since we're a team, we should go with a theme," Ruby replied cheerfully. "Since we're like these fairytale characters, we should dress up as them!"

"Couldn't we just go as ourselves?" the heiress snapped.

"Nah, that's too easy," her partner dismissed.

"Am I Goldilocks or Cinderella?" Yang asked, holding up the picture.

"Goldilocks. You have the hair for it," Blake told her after taking a look at the picture. She looked at her own and sighed. "I don't think this is going to work. I look nothing like Belle."

"That's why it's a costume, Blake!" Ruby reminded her cheerfully. "Besides, it doesn't have to be perfect."

"When did you figure all this out?" Weiss asked her partner. She was impressed with Ruby's initiative and organization, if not with what she was actually trying to accomplish.

"In engineering," Ruby replied proudly. "I still have to decide on a project, so I was on the Internet looking for ideas, and I got sidetracked and figured this out instead."

She pointed dramatically to the station. "Now, onward to Metrotown!"

* * *

><p>Gavin managed to get on the bus just before it left. The driver gave him an angry glare, but said nothing as he tapped his Compass card against the reader.<p>

He briefly wondered why Connor wasn't on the bus before remembering he had robotics on Thursdays. He noticed Aaron sitting near the front and grabbed onto the rail above him as the bus started moving.

"Hey, you made it," Aaron said lightly.

"Barely," Gavin replied. He bumped his friend on the shoulder. "Hey, you'll never guess who I invited

"Ruby, Weiss, Blake, and Yang," Aaron deadpanned. "I bet I know who they're going as, too."

Gavin sighed. "Really?"

He raised his hands defensively. "I'm just saying that if they know about the show, they should take advantage of the coincidence. I mean, they could totally pull it off."

Gavin cracked a grin. "You just want to see hot girls dressed up in anime outfits, don't you."

"Kinda, yeah," Aaron sheepishly admitted.

"So, do you go the-"

Aaron cut him off. "Yeah, I got it."

"Relax, man," Gavin told him. "We're out of the way, there's no cops around, and they're too busy with the crackheads to bust a party anyway. It'll be fine."

* * *

><p>The four girls entered the house looking- and feeling- dejected. It was five in the evening, the light was failing, and they had little to show for it. Aside from their school backpacks, all they carried was a single shopping bag.<p>

"That was a disaster," Weiss complained, dropping her backpack at the edge of the living room. "I knew this was a bad idea."

"We expected that we could just buy costumes off the shelf," Blake told her. "That was unreasonable."

"It's not too bad. We'll just have to improvise!" Ruby said cheerfully. She zipped away up the stairs.

"She's going for her cloak," Yang mentioned, flopping down on the couch.

Moments later, Ruby zipped into the living room, wearing her cloak as her sister predicted. She spun around, the cloak flapping around behind her. "See? I already have what I need."

"But that's the most recognizable thing about Little Red Riding Hood," Blake reminded her. "I look nothing like Belle."

"Well, there's different versions of the fairy tale," the crimsonette reminded her, sitting down with her cloak still on. She paused, then dashed away and came back with her laptop. "Let's see... versions of Beauty and the Beast..."

"You still have that dress," Yang reminded her, holding up the item in question. It was a deep purple, slightly shimmery.

Blake glared at her. "That's the one I bought for myself, not as a costume."

"It says that Belle was given lavish and expensive clothes," Ruby told her, reading from her laptop. She motioned to the dress in Yang's hands. "That looks lavish and expensive. And it also mentions..."

She stood up and bolted away again, leaving Weiss to catch her laptop before it smashed into the ground.

"You know, this is the most energetic I've seen her since we arrived her," Weiss noted.

Nobody could get in a reply before the girl returned. She held a single pristine red rose in her hand. "A rose! Belle wanted a rose, and the Beast had rose gardens!"

"Adam gave me a belladonna once," Blake reflected darkly as she took the flower. "I hadn't realized that he was a beast. Not yet."

Yang watched as she turned it over in her hands. She told her partner, "We all have some beast inside of us, Blake. You just can't let it take over."

Ruby, meanwhile, had moved onto Weiss. She recited, "Lips red like roses, hair black as ebony, skin white like snow. Yup."

"My hair is white," Weiss reminded her.

"I know, but we can still get two out of three!" Ruby said optimistically. "I got the lipstick and you're already really pale."

She picked up her laptop again and brought up a picture of snow white. "Hmm... blue shirt and yellow skirt... yup!"

"This is going to be horrible," the heiress muttered, resigned to Ruby's antics.

"This is going to be awesome!" Ruby shouted, nearly dropping the laptop once again.

"Careful, you dunce!"

Ruby turned her attention to her sister. She quickly said, "Well, I've got the hair, that's all I need."

"Nu-huh, sis!" Ruby admonished. She pulled the last item out of the bag. "It's not perfect, but it's probably better than what you were going to wear."

"I have fine fashion sense!" Yang snapped jokingly.

"Whatever," Weiss snorted. "Let's just-"

"We're doing a dress rehearsal, so we can see what we're going to look like!"

"Ugh."

* * *

><p>Tatopatato: This is what Gavin is trying to point out.<p>

Firehawk242: I'm actually not familiar with our world records, but I'm willing to bet that the girls could probably beat quite a few of them handily. I have no idea how football scoring works.

jakillking999: Yes, but probably not in this arc.

Guest with Q's: Define confirmed. At what point do you say, okay, this should be impossible, but it _must_ be true?

1. Gemstone is the actual codename of the task force. I've been semi-jokingly referring to the original OCs as "Team SICBJ" (pronounced Sick Bitch) outside the story, but for obvious reasons it's not a good name. I don't refer to the new OCs by any special name.

2. I think Ruby would want to do track, Weiss already does a form of fencing, not sure about Blake, and Yang would probably enjoy boxing or a contact sport like football. Out of these, only track is really safe for them to do. If Weiss is careful, fencing should be safe enough, but Yang could kill someone if she loses control.

3. It's a coincidence, and I'd make some sort of joke about it but I only have a vague idea of who Gavin is.

Guest: I'm honestly not sure what you're trying to say here.

linkthetoaoftime: I'm not sure where, but I think one of them commented on this in Emergence. Strength has very little to do with physique or gender on Remnant, unlike Earth. This is something they know but it's still strange to them.

BbK2442: These chapters are quite short for me as well. I'm quite busy with other things, and I just don't have the time to put out the word count anymore. I figure more chapters more frequently is better than fewer, longer chapters, though I'm still not sure about this decision.


	7. Party Time

The Halloween episode, finally. It did get delayed, and I did cut and rearrange quite a bit. I think this stands better on its own that it does in context, to be honest. But YMMV.

On a side note, "what high school parties are really like" is probably the strangest thing I've had to research, but at least this won't get me on a watch list.

* * *

><p><span><strong>7: Party Time<strong>

Little Red Riding Hood stepped merrily down the street, humming a tune that few on Earth would identify. Other than the trademark cape and unusual red-streaked black hair, she looked like a fairly normal 15-year-old girl, with a white T-shirt, dark jeans, and a pair of sneakers. She carried a wicker basket overflowing with candy.

Snow White haughtily followed behind her. Her hair was white as snow instead of black as ebony, although her skin was properly pale and her lips deep red. A blue T-shirt and yellow skirt with light brown heels provided an approximation of the proper outfit. The President's Choice bag in her hands, heavy with candy, was a bit out of place.

Belle, the Beauty, was half a pace behind. Her long black hair seemed out of place, the toque covering it even more so. Her shimmery purple dress and heeled boots were more fitting, even if the colours were totally wrong. The rose attached to her lapel was spot-on. She carried a pair of plastic shopping bags, both full of candy.

Goldilocks strode annoyingly close to her. Her blonde hair, almost yellow, spilled down her back, somehow messy yet immaculate at the same time. The white sweater and long blue skirt were at odds with her tall brown boots. She had one arm around the girl beside her and a pair of shopping bags full of candy in the other.

"I can't believe people actually gave us candy," Weiss said in disbelief, running her fingers through her bag of goodies. "I was under the impression that this was an event for small children."

"Some of them did give us funny looks," Blake commented, pulling out of Yang's embrace. "And some looks of pity. I think they thought we were poor, or had bad childhoods, or something along those lines."

"But we got lots of candy!" Ruby said. As if to prove her point, she pulled out an Aero bar and popped it in her mouth.

"Yep," her sister agreed. She pulled out her phone and checked the time. "It's after nine already. We should probably get to Gavin's place."

* * *

><p>A knock on the door prompted Gavin to put down his beer and answer it. He wondered if it was more guests or kids looking for candy.<p>

"Trick or treat," Yang said with a grin. She held out a bag of candy before turning it around and handing it to him.

Gavin looked at the other three, all dressed up and carrying large amounts of candy. He asked, "You went trick-or-treating?"

Yang shrugged. "Ruby wanted to go, so we did."

He laughed, taking the offered candy. "That's fuckin' hilarious. Come on, party's already started."

They stepped inside. The living room was dark and messy, with several knots of people gathered around. Most of them had a drink in their hand Music blared through the house, and a few girls in revealing costumes were dancing drunkenly to it.

"Well, this looks like fun," Yang commented lightly.

"It's noisy," Blake complained quietly.

"Yeah," Ruby agreed.

"This is not like any party I've been to," Weiss muttered.

Ruby did a dramatic flourish with her cloak. "Well, we came here to have fun, so let's have fun!"

* * *

><p>As the four girls went off to enjoy the party, Aaron tapped his friend on the shoulder. He pointed to the girls. "You realize they dressed up as themselves, right? Or at least the, you know, fairy-tale inspirational characters they're based off of."<p>

Gavin laughed. "How many have you had?"

"Four beers, but that's not the-"

"Yeah, that's a lot for you," he pointed out. "Dude, you're drunk."

"I'm not drunk, just listen." Aaron pointed at Ruby, who was standing awkwardly by the refreshments. She picked up a plastic cup, sniffed the contents, recoiled, and put it back. "Look, it's Little Red Riding Hood. Ruby... red. Ruby wears the cloak cape thing, Little Red Riding Hood wears the cloak cape thing."

"Okay, so? It's a classic fairy tale, lots of people like it." He paused. "I mean, she should have gone for Sexy Riding Hood or Badass Riding Hood or something like that, but whatever."

Aaron sighed and pointed at Blake, who was standing against the wall, carefully watching as she sipped a beer. "Blake. Belle."

"From Beauty and the Beast?" Gavin squinted dramatically. "Not seeing it. Some kind of Disney princess, but not Belle."

"It's Belle. Ask her and she'll tell you it's Belle." Exasperated, he jerked his head toward Yang. "Goldilocks."

"I would have gone with Rapunzel, but either way it's a pretty obvious choice with hair like that," Gavin opined. "I mean, I'm not gay or anything, but if I had hair like that..."

"Dude, you'd only have hair like that if you _were_ gay." Aaron countered. He pointed to the last of the girls. "Weiss Schnee. Snow White."

"Your German is impeccable."

"No, her costume!"

Gavin literally scratched his head at that one. "How are you even getting Snow White? Definitely royalty, but I'd say Elsa or Daenerys before I'd say Snow White."

"Ask them, then!" He waved his arm dramatically, spilling the beer in his hand. "They'll tell you it's Little Red Riding Hood, Snow White, Belle, and Goldilocks!"

Gavin laughed. "God damn it, man."

"Just look at their costumes," Aaron insisted. "They're terrible and they're not slutty at all. It's like they've never been to a Halloween party before and they threw them together at the last minute."

"Maybe they had fucked up lives before they came here. Maybe they were nerds or maybe they're orphans or something," Gavin laughed and clapped his friend on the shoulder. "Look, man, this is funny as hell but you really shouldn't do this conspiracy theory shit when you're smashed."

* * *

><p>Aaron was not content to take his friend's advice. While Gavin went to hit on one of the cheerleaders, he gulped down another cup of beer. Blake was standing on her own near the edge of the room. He was about to approach her when an idea occurred to him.<p>

Blake watched as the football player rifled through a bowl of candy, then turned and approached her with something, presumably candy, behind his back. He revealed it and smirked. "How about a Kit Kat for a kitty cat?"

"That's- I don't get it," she replied angrily. Being hit on in such a racist way made her feel insulted, but she knew she had to hide those feelings.

"It's because..." Aaron began, stopping himself when he realized how stupid his explanation would sound. "Well, you're cute, like a cat, so... well, they're good anyway."

She snatched the bar out of his hand. "Thanks, I guess."

"You never told me what's with the hat-"

Blake heaved a sigh. "You really want to prove I'm some anime character, don't you?"

"Prove me wrong, then," Aaron insisted, smiling. "Tell me who you really are."

She glared at him. "I'm not interested in you."

"You don't even know me," he replied.

"I know that you're dangerously obsessed with fictional characters."

He winked at her. "Was that an admission, _Belladonna_?"

Blake glared back. "Aaron, you're drunk. Nothing you say makes any sense."

"Yeah, you're right," he admitted. "But I do like you, _Bella_, and I do want to get to know you. Come on, don't be so dismissive."

"What do you want to know?" she snapped.

"Well, we could start with something simple, like where you're from."

"Burnaby."

"Burnaby?"

"Were you expecting Vale?"

"Well, no, but Burnaby seems kind of mundane for a girl like you," Aaron said. "I figured maybe Ontario or Alberta."

"No, just Burnaby."

"I noticed you had a book the other day," the boy tried. "What's it about?"

"It's called Let The Trumpet Sound," she replied. "It's about Martin Luther King."

"Not some trashy romance novel?"

"I don't really read those much." She paused. "Aaron, I'm not stupid. I know you're trying to prove I'm really Blake Belladonna. If you go in thinking that, you're going to come to that conclusion no matter who I really am."

"So, the hat is really because..."

"I don't want to talk about it," she snapped. Looking for an excuse, she noticed Yang sitting down with a tough-looking boy in the kitchen. "I should check on Yang. She can get a little wild at times."

"Bumblebee," Aaron muttered as she walked away. He thought he saw Blake's hat twitch as she walked away, but dismissed it. They were right, he _was_ already drunk.

* * *

><p>Ruby needed to pee.<p>

The single beer, contaminated punch, and two cans of soda she'd had since the beginning of the night had gone straight through her, and now she needed to find a bathroom. She thought about asking Gavin where it was, but he was busy doing some kind of dance with a girl in a skimpy monkey outfit, so she sneaked off to find it herself.

She hadn't seen many Terran homes, but figured they were similar enough to Remnan ones, so she went upstairs where the bathrooms and bedrooms usually were. The staircase lead to a hallway with six identical doors. She tried the first one and found a dark, empty bedroom.

She tried the second one and found a bedroom that was dark, but not empty.

"Oh god!" She slammed the door shut, turned around, and inadvertently activated her Semblance, leaving a mess of rose petals and nearly slamming into the door at the other end of the hall.

She stumbled around the hallway, picking up rose petals like an automaton as her young mind struggled to comprehend the events she had just witnessed.

Amazingly, she managed not to lose control over her bladder, but she still had to find a bathroom. She knocked on the door she had nearly slammed into. "Hello? Is there anyone in there?"

There was no response, and she carefully opened the door. On the other side was a dirty and smelly, but empty, bathroom. She flushed her armful of rose petals down the toilet before shutting the door and locking it.

* * *

><p>The two opponents bored into each others souls, intent on their enemy yet totally focused on their battle. Their faces contorted with effort. Neither one of them would give an inch to their adversary.<p>

Then Yang winked and effortlessly slammed Darrel's hand onto the table.

"You fucking cheated!" the football player immediately accused. His "action movie hero" costume showed off his powerful arms, at least twice the diameter of his opponent.

"I said I was a boxer," Yang told him, smiling smugly. Like her opponent, she was more than a little tipsy, and it did not do her decision making skills any favours. "Strong arms, upper-body strength."

"Bullshit!" he roared.

"I just don't think you want to admit that you got beaten by a girl," Yang countered smugly.

"Maybe you're not really a girl." Darrel snapped without thinking.

"Maybe you're not really a guy," Yang shot back.

"Fuck you, bitch!" Darrel knew that he shouldn't have thrown the first punch, but he didn't care. Yang had been expecting it, but her reaction was slow, and ended up blocking with her elbow instead of her forearm.

"Hey, look, a fight!" someone shouted. The crowd was already gathering.

Yang stepped back and into a combat stance. Her technique was sloppy and she knew it. Drunk fighting was something she, believe it or not, generally tried to avoid. She noted even in her hazy state that her opponent had no technique whatsoever.

At this point, Ruby returned from the bathroom, and Blake and Weiss arrived to see what the commotion was about. The crimsonette asked her teammates, "What's happening?"

"The hot blonde chick's in a fight with one of the tough guys," a bystander told them.

They shared a look. "Yang."

"Oh, you have got to be kidding me," Weiss muttered. The other two were already pushing through the crowd toward the fight.

Darrel threw another punch and Yang ducked under it, pushing him into the wall hard enough to crack the drywall. Darrel was smart enough- and fast enough- to get out of the way of her next punch, which put a hole in the wall. He charged forward, intent on hitting the girl as hard as he could.

"Yang, no!" Ruby shouted, grabbing her sister's arm before she could drive it into Darrel's face. Blake latched onto the other and they struggled to hold her back. Aaron and Gavin had arrived and grabbed onto Darrel, pulling him away from the girl.

"Dude, what the fuck?" Gavin shouted at his friend.

"Yang, you have to calm down!" Blake shouted at her partner.

"Oh, shit," the fighters said at almost the same time. Darrel realized that he could have done some serious damage to a beautiful girl. Yang realized that she could have lost control and killed him.

"I'm so sorry," Darrel apologized. "I just got so pissed off and, well..."

"It's kind of my fault for provoking you," Yang admitted.

"We cool?" Gavin asked. They nodded. "Alright, try not to kill each other."

"I was holding back, you know," Yang told her teammates.

"Yeah, I know," Ruby told her sister. "It's okay, Yang. Just... try not to do it again, okay?"

"Yeah."

Ruby motioned to Blake, who nodded back. She would keep Yang out of trouble for the rest of the night- after all, it was her job to watch her partner's back.

* * *

><p>"Come on, girl, loosen up," Cleopatra said to Snow White for perhaps the third time this evening. "You're wound up like a fucking spring."<p>

"This environment makes me uneasy," Weiss replied to the dark-skinned girl. Though she was feeling more than a little buzzed and her cheeks were flushed red, her voice was level and carefully controlled.

She shook her head. "You know there's something on your mind. You're wound up like a fucking spring. Come on, just let it out. Let it loose."

"But what about-"

"It's a fucking party. You're supposed to do stupid shit without giving a fuck about what happens after," she told the heiress. "If you're not that kind of person, well, then why the fuck are you here?"

"I don't follow your logic," Weiss replied coldly.

"That's because you haven't had enough yet." The girl handed Weiss another cup of beer. "Relax. Loosen up. That's why you're here."

"I can't just be irresponsible," she said, taking the alcohol anyway. "I have to set an example for..."

"For what? Jesus, girl, you sound like you got the weight of the fuckin' world on your shoulders."

"I _do_ have the weight of the world on my shoulders," Weiss said quietly. "You have no idea how much responsibility my father places on me."

The other girl smirked. "Well, you're here now, aren't you?"

Her head snapped around and she stared at her. "What did you just say?"

"Cleopatra" leaned backward, raising her arms. "Whoa, all I said is that you're here now! Like, despite what your father probably wanted."

"You know, you're right," the heiress replied, smiling. "I'm nobody here. My father isn't here. The company isn't here. I'm a world away, with no hope of going back, so why _should_ I care?"

"Let it out," the other girl urged.

"I'm not responsible for _shit_!" Weiss slammed her fists down on the table, somehow managing to only spill half of the drink in her right hand. Before she realized what she was doing, she was on top of the table.

"Fuck you Siegfried!" the former heiress shouted at the ceiling, waving her cup around and sloshing its contents on the floor. "I'm not your fucking heiress anymore! I don't give a shit about your fucking company! You can't control me anymore, you son of a bitch! I'm a world away and you can't fucking get me! Yob tvoyu maht! Fuck your mother! Fick dich! Fuck you!"

Mixed feelings of self-disgust and elation swirled through her mind. Realizing what she'd just done, she hopped off the table. She muttered to herself, "What have I done," but she was drowned out by the crowd chanting "Fuck Siegfried! Fuck you!"

Gavin leaned over and asked Aaron. "Would Weiss Schnee do that?"

Aaron blinked. "I... don't know."

* * *

><p>"Truth or dare?" Aaron asked, staring into the girl's blue eyes. Or trying too, anyway. It was hard when she had such nice tits.<p>

"We're not playing truth or dare," Yang replied, blinking. "Or wait, are we?"

"We're not, but I want to get a thing out of you."

"Oh." Yang laughed. "I'll go with truth then."

With a surprising amount of coherence, Aaron asked, "Who are you, really?"

Yang looked down, took a deep breath, then answered intensely, "My name is Yang Xiao Long. I was born on the island of Patch, off the coast of Vale, in what would be... I think 1997 by your system. My father is Taiyang Xiao Long and my mother was Raven Branwen, although I believed my stepmother, Summer Rose, was my biological mother for a number of years. I have one sister, Ruby Rose, the child of Taiyang Xiao Long and Summer Rose, born two years later.

"As expected, I demonstrated strong ability at an early age. I discovered my Semblance soon after unlocking my Aura- it's the ability to turn damage into strength. I attended Signal Academy and focused on augmented hand-to-hand combat. I applied to and was accepted into Beacon Academy to train to become a Huntress. During initiation, I became partners with Blake Belladonna and was placed into Team RWBY- led by my sister. The W is for Weiss Schnee, Ruby's partner and heiress to the Schnee Dust Company.

"I completed one term at Beacon. Near the end, there was an... incident. Roman Torchwick, along with the White Fang, was trying to steal a large amount of Dust. I got there too late to do anything, but Ruby, Blake, and this weird Penny girl were involved. Turns out Blake is a Faunus, was part of the White Fang, and generally it was a big mess. I don't remember anything clear past that, and I don't remember starting second term. The earliest clear memory I have after the docks is waking up in an alley in a city in the middle of the desert."

Then she burst out laughing.

"See, she fucking admitted it!" Aaron shouted, his elated words badly slurred. "Best night ever amiright?"

"Dude, she's so obviously making this shit up it's obvious," Gavin told him, also laughing.

"Sis, I think we should go," Ruby said urgently, tugging on her giggling sister's sleeve. Her grip slipped and she fell over.

"Ruby, why are you down there?" Yang asked, still laughing.

"Yang, you're drunk," Blake reminded her.

The blonde held up a finger, digging through the candy bowl for a certain chocolate bar. She found one and waved it in front of Blake. "How about a Kit Kat for my Kitty Cat?"

"Yang," she hissed, snatching the chocolate bar away and tossing it away. "For the third time, it's not funny."

"Fuck yeah Bumblebee!" Aaron shouted.

"I prefer Optimus Prime," Gavin shouted back.

"I miss my bike," Yang said suddenly sadly.

"Yang, you're way too drunk," Ruby said, hauling her sister over her shoulder and nearly falling over in the process. She turned to Gavin. "Sorry, but we need to leave. I can't let my sister have any more."

"This feels familiar," Yang muttered. "Didn't we do this in Moresit... Mursit... that place on the border between the bird country and the one with those evil dudes... ISIS?"

"You're the fucking Bride, too?" Aaron asked. Yang smiled and flashed him a thumbs-up.

"I'm really sorry about this," Blake apologized, helping Ruby with her sister.

"Idiots," Weiss muttered. Of the three, she was probably the most intact, despite what had happened earlier.

"Bye guys," Yang slurred, waving as she was carried out the door.

* * *

><p>Guest: This was the other option I considered. I did a kind of informal poll and most people preferred that they not go as themselves, so that's what I went with.<p>

ODST110: Task Force Gemstone is still around and doing stuff; in fact, originally Team RWBY was going to get a ride home from a tactical response team at the end of the chapter, but I cut the section. The other OCs might appear from time to time, but their role as stars of the story is done. They might have a bigger role in Part 2; we'll see.

Alpha Omega Wolf: Maybe, but those aren't exactly commonly offered.


	8. After the Fall

Capping off the Halloween arc with this short piece. I've been preoccupied with some IRL things, so it's a bit short and late. I had a lot of trouble figuring out what to put in this chapter and even more writing it. This is almost a stopgap and I apologize for that.

The next arc will be either Lest We Forget (1 chapter) or All Expenses Paid (2-3 chapters). Virtual cookies to anyone who can figure out what those two are. There may be a bridge chapter in between.

* * *

><p><span><strong>8: After The Fall<strong>

_**Aaron Wong**_

"I fucked up, didn't I?"

I couldn't really drink. I knew it, I understood it, but I always ended up doing it anyway. It was just a stupid thing I did. My memory of the night before was hazy and I couldn't remember anything very well, though I had a distinct feeling I did something stupid. I also had a massive hangover. Leaning my head against my locker never felt better.

"You tell me." Gavin smirked, like the asshole was enjoying it. "What do you remember?"

"Well, I did something stupid with Blake," I replied, still leaning against my comfortable locker. "I think I might have pushed too hard. Asking her about her hat and stuff."

"Yeah, that was pretty stupid," Gavin said honestly.

"It was," I admitted. "But we all do stupid things when we're drunk, right?"

"And..."

"And?"

"Yang?" He reminded me, infuriatingly. "You know, how she totally fucked with you?"

What? "We fucked?"

I could see him struggling not to burst into laughter. "Fucked _with_ you."

"Ah." If I remember correctly, which I didn't, I'd asked her who she really was, and she'd spouted off her life story... well, Yang Xiao Long's life story. "Right."

"She was just fucking with you. You realize she's fucking with you, right?"

I didn't answer. There was an awkwardly long pause.

"You really gotta drop this anime shit," Gavin reminded me. "Just treat them as _people_."

"I know." I'd just grasped onto this idea of these people really being these characters, probably because it's really awesome. "I know."

"You should probably, you know, apologize," Gavin said, managing to be light and serious at the same time.

I thought about it. I knew I should, but I didn't know if I could. I might have done something really stupid, and they might not want to talk to me at all. I answered honestly. "I dunno, we'll see."

The bell rang. Time to go to class. Art... with Blake Bella- Bella Blake.

* * *

><p><em><strong>Weiss Schnee<strong>_

I felt, to put it in the local vernacular, like shit.

I knew I'd lost control at the party. I'd had far too much alcohol, I'd lost my temper and raged, I did things I regret. I knew I shouldn't have done them at the time, but I just didn't care.

Truth be told, we never should have gone to that idiotic party to begin with. Ruby said that we should experience what Earth's culture was really like, and I had reluctantly agreed. Yang loved parties. Blake didn't say anything.

But in a way, I felt conflicted. I'd done something incredibly stupid and embarrassing, yet nothing had changed. Nothing had _happened_. It wasn't what everyone was talking about. Nobody was gossiping about how Anna Weiss made a fool of herself. My face wasn't plastered all over the news with the headline "Schnee Heiress Embarrasses."

I knew that there were consequences in life- I was expecting to get a nice chat from Gemstone any moment now- but it was so strange to be out of the public eye. I didn't have to be an example. Didn't have to be perfect. Because here, I'm not Weiss Schnee, heiress to the Schnee Dust Company. I'm just-

"Anna?" Vicki said, waving her hand in front of my face. "Earth to Anna?"

I blinked. "Sorry?"

"You kinda zoned out," she told me.

"I was just thinking about the party last night," I replied honestly. That's what normal girls thought about, right?

"Regrets, huh?"

"Kind of."

"Did you, well, you know," she leaned closer. "Do it?"

Daffodil rolled her eyes. "It's just sex, Vicki. You act like you're five sometimes."

"No!" I retorted. "I just got a little drunk and may have done something embarassing."

"I know that feeling," Vicki replied. "I try not to do that anymore."

"Whose party?" Lisa asked, leaning past Vicki.

"Gavin Lloyd."

"The football player?" I detected a hint of disdain in her voice.

"You should come to our party next time," Vicki told me. "They're much more refined. Have you ever been to a _mansion_ before, Anna?"

"No, I haven't," I lied. In fact, most of the parties I had attended had been at the Schnee Castle, which I'm sure is leagues beyond what she meant.

"Well, it's great," she said haughtily. "We have a proper bar, and a pool, and-"

"Okay, time for business," the teacher interrupted as she hurried into the room. I checked my watch. Two minutes late. "Let's get started now."

* * *

><p>ODST110: Never heard of it, had to look it up but there isn't a lot of information around. I guess I can see the parallels, but the context is a bit different.<p>

linkthetoaoftime: It's on the list of things they should have said but didn't occur to them at the time. I actually planned the venting for much later but threw it into that chapter, and I'm not sure if I should have or not.

Tatopatato: That's the idea.

Firehawk242: Or are they?

bhark3: Unfortunately for those kinds of things, they seem to still be trying to keep RWBY family-friendly. I really feel they should give up all pretences and go for the darker, more mature show- not only is it what I want to see but it seems to also be what they really want to make. But that's a much longer discussion for another day.

Guest: And Aaron, as a professional drunk conspiracy theorist, would be taken seriously by no one.

Fourze: It's probably actually best if they don't, since interrupting would imply a reason to stop her, but they didn't think of that at the time, being completely wasted.


	9. Two Weeks

Yes, it's a bridge chapter. Looking at the timing, I think the next real chapter is going to be Lest We Forget. Then a possible bridge chapter, then All Expenses Paid. After that, I'm not sure, and then they'll go off to Christmas holiday, which is already written.

* * *

><p><span><strong>9: Two Weeks<strong>

_**Ruby Rose**_

Two weeks passed fast. We settled into a routine and everything just became kinda normal. I mean that kind of thing already happened when I got here and everyone else got here, but I guess I still wasn't expecting all this to become routine so fast.

Get up, shower, make breakfast. We ate a lot because Earth food isn't very nutritious- we've have a lot of bread, usually some bacon that was sometimes microwave, a can or two of fruit, and on a good day we'd make eggs or pancakes.

Go to school. It wasn't too far, so we just walked. We moved at a brisk pace and I knew there were people watching, but we didn't really notice. If we were alone we could talk openly about Remnant and stuff.

Morning classes. The blocks rotated so they were sometimes different and sometimes we had to split up and sometimes we didn't. Sometimes I had classes I liked like Engineering or PE but sometimes it was Social Studies which was interesting but kind of boring or Science which was just boring.

Lunch break. Sometimes we packed lunch, sometimes we bought it. Buying lunch was pretty expensive but they said we didn't have to worry about it but I felt bad about spending so much money. Usually we just stayed together, sometimes we'd go for a walk, sometimes we'd talk to Gavin and his crew but Gavin like Yang and Aaron was weird.

Afternoon class. It was basically like the morning except we were more tired and we wanted to go home. We didn't have any clubs or anything yet, so when class was over we were finished.

Relaxing. Usually we'd watch news or educational programs on TV to learn more about Earth, but sometimes we just wanted some entertainment and that meant comedy that we didn't understand before we discovered sci-fi and fantasy and now we usually watched that for entertainment because we could understand it better. But sometimes we tried comedy anyway. And then there was the Internet which was really good for learning and wasting time.

Dinner. None of us were very good at cooking so usually it was frozen pizzas or TV dinners or other quick packaged food that was really popular here. Sometimes we wanted to order out and we did once but it was expensive and not very good.

Homework. It was a really light load compared to Beacon and we got a lot done at school. Apparently a lot of people didn't bother at all which was kind of bad but I guess it's a culture thing.

Bed time. We all slept in one room, in four separate beds obviously. Usually we still had lots of energy so we didn't really sleep well and sometimes we'd just talk for hours which was bad but we weren't going to sleep anyway.

So much was different, but so much was the same. Vancouver was a really safe place, even though there are bad parts and some people say it isn't. There were no Grimm and even the criminals weren't very dangerous to us. But we still went to school, tried to pay attention in class, tried to make new friends and have fun just like at Beacon. It was more like

I mean, there were still a lot of doubts and stuff that normal people didn't worry about. Not using our Semblances, not using Aura overly. Limiting ourselves and staying under control. Using fake names and fake places. Not saying things that would be weird for Earth. But even when we said weird stuff or did weird stuff most people didn't even care.

We had different views on life on Earth. I thought there was still lots of interesting stuff to look at and do and I was excited for that but it definitely wasn't as exciting in the same way as Remnant. Weiss acted like she didn't care but I noticed she was a lot more nice and open now, Blake said she found Earth interesting, but I knew my sister was really kind of bored and not the same anymore.

But I guess this is just what life is like now. It's so weird but so normal at the same time.

_**Aaron Wong**_

I tried my best to forget about the whole Bella Blake equals Blake Belladonna thing and treat her like a normal (if new) person. Maybe part of it was because she looked like Blake, but I really did want to get to know her. It was hard, though, because although she wasn't a mean bitch or anything, she didn't talk and didn't like talking. I think she was intentionally avoiding me, even.

I had English with Anna, but she was cold and distant and didn't want to talk much. Oddly, though, she seemed fairly relaxed, which I guess made sense if you didn't constantly compare her to Weiss. Yang could be fun, but she had a really weird thing with Gavin and sometimes didn't want to talk. Ruby was... well, basically like Ruby. Excited and hyper, but lots of kids her age are.

They're no different than us, really. The new people are basically like the old people. Everybody's different, but it's not like they're crazy or anything. Sometimes they said or did weird stuff, but when I thought about it, I wasn't exactly a paragon of normalcy either.

Of course, there was that voice in the back of my mind reminding me that this very possibly _really was_ RWBY. Gavin told me to tell that voice to shut up. While it didn't shut up completely, I did manage to shut it out if we're gonna keep using that metaphor. Maybe I was being irrational, putting together pieces that are sort of there into something that doesn't make sense. But do I really have to be?

I'm seventeen, having the time of my life, doing stupid things, having fun and making mistakes. Logical, rational thought isn't really how I'm working right now. In a way, I guess I'm just going with the flow, while I still can. A wise man once said to worry about today today and worry about tomorrow tomorrow.

Well, maybe he wasn't that wise after all.

_**Connor Lloyd**_

Ruby is strange. Maybe even the strangest girl I've ever met... not that I've ever talked to a girl for more than a minute. Maybe that's what's weird- that she doesn't seem to mind me. I mean, I don't think she _likes_ me, but it's not like I know how to tell.

She's the fastest one in my PE class. Not the fastest girl, the fastest, period. In fact, she's probably the best athlete in the class. She can jump higher, throw harder, and lift more than anyone else. Almost like she's on another level compared to everyone else. On the other hand, I've only seen it here and there, like she's limiting herself. Maybe she just doesn't want the attention, I mean, one time I tried to pretend I was dumb in math.

And she's kind of become my defender in that class, as weird as it is. She told those bullies to back off and they usually don't try anything when she's around. I mean, I'm progressive, and I'm happy to have my knightess in shining armour, but it kind of looks bad for me. I told her that and she said it was silly, and she told me about a fairy tale which I'm pretty sure only exists in feminist magazines. So she's weird, but she's really nice, so I guess it's okay.

She's also in my science class, and I wonder what their curriculum was like in her old school because she knew about some things and had no clue about others. She was really confused by the chemistry stuff, but most of it's new for Grade 10 so that makes sense. She said she already knew most of the physics we did but messed up most of the symbols. She also seemed to really be fascinated by space, which is cool because most girls don't like space, but didn't know much about it.

I don't see her outside of class much, though, because she hangs out with these older kids. I recognized one of them as the blonde girl, Yang, my brother likes. I tried to ask him about it but he denied it, of course. I'm surprised that they weren't already dating, I mean, my big bro is a football player and he's like super popular and awesome and stuff and usually girls are all over him.

I wish I was more like my big brother, but I guess I just lost the genetic lottery because I'm nothing like him. He tells me I'm the smart one, I'm the one with the brighter future, that I've got so many things going for me. At some level I know it but it's looking pretty dark when the bullies come and you've got no friends and you don't even understand how dating works.

Ruby's definitely been brightening things up, but I have a bad feeling about it, like it's all going to come crashing down. And there's something weird about her I just couldn't place.

* * *

><p>ODST110: I, uh... I really have no idea what you're trying to say.<p>

TheMAO17: I've never watched any, but I suspect it would seem fairly mild to RWBY.

Guest: Yeah, kind of...

JXA3422: I guess I probably should know better, but I don't exactly have any idea what I'm doing when it comes to sports.


	10. An Announcement

As you all probably know by now, Monty Oum is dead.

I understand on an intellectual level what many of you are going through. My own feelings can be described as _kind of sad_; I never knew him beyond "the guy who created RWBY", unlike a lot of the community. I do not mean to be impolite or insensitive.

But... I have practical considerations to be concerned about. Emergence is in the unique situation where this actually has an effect on the story. It doesn't wreck it like the teacher strike shattered the original plan, but it does still have implications.

Aliens Among Us is currently in November 2014. It's currently February 2015. So we're not there yet. But we will get there within the next few months.  
>Monty Oum will die in universe. There will be much poorly-written navel gazing and possibly some feels.<br>I'm going to try to be sensitive and respectful about it, but keep in mind that this story has, so far, had all the subtlety of a sledgehammer to the face.  
>It will slightly affect Emergence Part 2, but really only the second arc.<br>It probably won't affect Emergence beyond Part 2, because at that point we've moved on to much grander ambitions.

I'm more worried about the shift in tone that could accompany the Wham Episode than changes in the plotline; the plot is fairly secure, but things might edge toward grimdark.


	11. Lest We Forget

This has been delayed because of the semi-special episode being written at the same time. If you haven't seen that, it's called Death of a Friend. I'll admit that this chapter isn't so great. It was very difficult to write and I actually ended up starting the next before hurriedly wrapping this one up. There was a lot I wanted to do, but the words just wouldn't flow and I'm sorry.

Because of FFn's forced chapter numbering and a desire to keep the announcement, I've skipped Chapter 10 and made this Chapter 11. This is actually a serendipitous coincidence given the contents of this chapter.

This chapter will probably be a lot more familiar to readers from Commonwealth countries than readers from the United States.

I couldn't find good information on the actual ceremony carried out in Vancouver. This is based on an official guide and the opening remarks are adapted from an old Toronto speech. It's been a while since I've been to one so it's not terribly accurate.

Sadly, there are many who really do not understand or care about what Remembrance Day is really about. Though I do think this is a bad thing, I do understand why.

* * *

><p><span><strong>11: Lest We Forget<strong>

Yang, Blake, and Weiss followed Gavin and his friends through the hallway. They didn't really know where they were going, but apparently there was an assembly or something, and the locals seemed to know what they were doing, so they followed.

"Hey! I'm here, guys!" Ruby shouted from the other end of the hall, standing up and waving. She zipped through the crowd and emerged between Yang and Weiss. "Are you heading to the assembly."

"Hell no," Aaron said, laughing.

Gavin laughed. "You weren't really going to go to that assembly, are you?"

"Uh, aren't we supposed to?" Ruby asked, more confused than anything.

Gavin laughed. "Nah, nobody goes to assemblies."

"They're not important?" Weiss asked, almost asking if they were important _here_.

"Nah. Come on, I know a place." As a group, they kept going, heading away from the gym. The crowds started to thin out and they quickly found themselves in an empty hallway.

"Is this really a good idea?" Ruby whispered to her teammates.

"When in Rome..." Blake muttered.

Yang heard it. "What?"

"It means when in a foreign land, do the same things the locals do. I think."

"That makes sense."

"This is it," Gavin said, stopping in front of a door that looked like any of the other ones. He twisted the handle and it opened immediately. "Tada!"

They filed into the room and Gavin shut the door behind them.

"What if we get caught?" Weiss asked. Of the three girls, she was most concerned with the blatant disrespect for authority.

"We're not going to get caught," Aaron assured them.

"So... what are we missing?" Yang asked carefully.

"What?"

"Remembrance Day assembly," Aaron told her. "Duh."

She nodded in understanding, even though none of them actually knew what they were missing. Each of them thought about asking, but decided not to. Instead, they watched as he leaned back against a desk and pulled a tablet out of his backpack. "Oh, holy shit, some crazy dude stabbed a bunch of people in Israel."

* * *

><p>The crowds were thick for the solemn occasion. Near the back was a crimson-haired girl in bright red standing beside a taller girl with long blonde hair and a matching outfit, a short girl with oddly white hair dressed in white, and a taller one with deep black hair in black and deep purple.<p>

The beginning of the ceremony was marked by a pop and nasty feedback screech that reverberated through the PA system. Following that, a deep, confident voice announced, "Today, on the eleventh day of the eleventh month, at the eleventh hour, we gather to remember.

"We remember those who served our country in times of need. We remember the service and the sacrifices of more than one and a half million Canadian soldiers, sailors, aircrew, and merchant seamen in wars, conflicts, and peacekeeping operations around the world. We stop to think how much that Canadian families have sacrificed, while their loved ones served overseas.

"As I look across the crowd here today, I see that the faces of our armed forces and of our veterans are changing - there are now many more young women and men who have served Canada since the Second War, and since the Korean Conflict.

"Whether on peacekeeping duties worldwide or in disaster zones and trouble spots at home and abroad, thousands of new veterans have answered our call and protected our interests. Some returned broken in mind, body, or spirit. Some did not return with their lives.

"Many were killed and injured on peacekeeping duties. Over 150 have died, and hundreds more were wounded, in Afghanistan alone fighting to bring freedom and hope to the people of that war-torn nation. As we stand here today, in peace and in safety, we remember those who have served us and sacrificed for us.

"Those who are serving at home and abroad today… we thank you. Those who have served – including those who are here with us today… we thank you. Those who have served and never returned… we thank you."

He finished, "Canada remembers. Vancouver remembers. We remember."

"This is like the Day of the Defenders," Ruby whispered. She didn't get a chance to elaborate.

There was a pause before a sharp woman's voice took over.

"In Flanders fields the poppies blow  
>Between the crosses, row on row,<br>That mark our place; and in the sky  
>The larks, still bravely singing, fly<br>Scarce heard amid the guns below.

"We are the Dead. Short days ago  
>We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,<br>Loved, and were loved, and now we lie  
>In Flanders Fields.<p>

"Take up our quarrel with the foe:  
>To you from failing hands we throw<br>The torch; be yours to hold it high.  
>If ye break faith with us who die<br>We shall not sleep, though poppies grow  
>In Flanders Fields."<p>

"It's a beautiful poem, in a sad way," Blake remarked quietly.

Another pause, then a young man recited the Act of Remembrance.

"They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:

Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.

At the going down of the sun and in the morning

We will remember them."

"We will remember them," the crowd echoed.

"Reverend Quincy Hart will now recite a prayer in honour of the fallen. We ask that you be respectful regardless of your personal beliefs."

"We give praise and thanks to you O Lord of Hosts, for all that makes our common life secure: for reverence for things holy, for respect for our fellow humans, for the humility that leads us to draw on your strength.

"We thank you for the peace we enjoy and for the opportunity that is ours of building a better order of society in this Canada for the generations still to come.

"We remember with pride and gratitude those who fought on the land, the sea and in the skies to make this possible, and we pray that the memory of their self-giving may inspire us to invest our energy, our strength and our substance in building a world where the Angel Dove of Peace may fly freely and safely, and may do it, O God, for your sake and for all our sakes.

"Amen."

"Amen," most of the crowd echoed. Unfamiliar with the custom, the four girls did not.

"Oops," Yang whispered. "Were we supposed to-"

She was interrupted by a bugler playing The Last Post, a bugle call which in this context symbolized death. None of the four understood the meaning, but they did understand that it was meant to be solemn.

"Ladies and gentlemen, we shall now observe the two minutes of silence. Please remove or retain your headdress and bow your head as your convictions dictate."

Blake felt a small twinge of shame about keeping her hat on. In her case, it had nothing to do with spiritual beliefs or personal values and everything to do with that cat ears underneath. She bowed her head with the other four and everyone else attending.

Quickly, their young minds began to wander. Ruby began thinking about Summer and everyone back on Remnant. Weiss alternated between the attacks on her family and the fighting in Donetsk. Blake remembered her time in the White Fang. Yang went back to Raqqa.

Fortunately, the two minutes were short. Their thoughts were interrupted by the Reveille, though they didn't know what it was called. It was immediately followed by a female voice reading,

"They were young, as we are young,  
>They served, giving freely of themselves.<br>To them, we pledge, amid the winds of time,  
>To carry their torch and never forget.<br>We will remember them."

The four girls joined the crowed as they echoed in a rolling mumble, "We will remember them."

"We will now begin the laying of the wreaths." This was accompanied by a slow, sad music, and the announcements of various representatives. Representing the Queen. Representing the Government of Canada. The Province of British Columbia. The City of Vancouver. The Canadian Forces. The Royal Canadian Legion. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police. The Canadian Peacekeeping Veterans Association. Others.

It took a long time to lay all the wreaths.

The voice concluded, "Individuals and representatives other organizations not on the official list may lay their own wreaths after the conclusion of the ceremony. Reverend Quincy Hart will now read the Benediction."

After a pause and some shuffling sounds, the same voice that had read the previous prayer at the beginning said, "The Lord bless you and keep you, the Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious unto you; the Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace. Amen."

"Amen."

"Please stand for the playing of the National Anthem." By now, the words had become familiar to the four girls, and their voices rang out along with everyone else.

"Ladies and gentlemen, that concludes the 2014 Remembrance Day proceedings. Thank you for gathering today to remember."

* * *

><p>The girl in red waited patiently in line, flanked by her three teammates. Among the drably dressed people around them, their bright colours stood out. It may have been more appropriate to a jubilant occasion than a solemn day of remembrance on Earth, but Remnans, especially those from Vale, had a different view.<p>

They didn't have to wait long before the crowd thinned out, the stoic, the sobbing, and the indifferent having placed their personal or organizational monuments to the dead. Hesitantly, the girl in red unwrapped an odd wreath and stepped toward the cenotaph.

"I know we're not even from the same planet," Ruby said quietly to the cenotaph as she fumbled with the multicoloured wreath. "But where we come from, fighting for those who can't is really important. So, uh, thank you. From the huntsmen and huntresses and the people of Remnant."

She took a hesitant step backward, then, silently, turned and left, followed by the other three.


	12. Learning

A chapter full of classroom slices with some of the OCs that haven't been getting a lot of screen time. Hopefully. They are very thing slices, I know. They were longer, but most social interactions aren't actually as substantial as they often are in fiction. We don't have to make every scene count. On the other hand, this is a story. We _do_ have to make every scene count.

It's a difficult balance to strike. Please leave your thoughts in a review.

Next chapter is either another slices chapter, or, more likely, the first part of the next arc.

* * *

><p><span><strong>12: Learning<strong>

"Okay, so today we'll be going to the lab and starting the environmental disaster project," the science teacher announced, handing out thin packages. "Today, I want you to get into partners- you can choose your own partner- and when we go to the lab you can start researching and find out what you want to do."

And that was the part he hated.

Connor watched as everyone partnered up with their friends, as they did in every class. He only had a few friends, and none in this class. He was always the odd one out. Sometimes that meant he had to work on his own, which was okay, and sometimes the teacher would put him with another pair, which sucked because they didn't want him.

Having to do it for one class sucked. Having to do it for the next month would be unbearable.

"Hey, Connor." It was that girl, Ruby. "Wanna be partners?"

Maybe not today. He smiled. "Sure."

Connor hurriedly stuffed his books into his backpack and zipped it up. Ruby waited impatiently beside him- she was a ball of energy that wanted to get going. As soon as he had his backpack halfway on, the girl grabbed his arm and dragged him after the other students.

"Ruby, slow down!" he said, panicking. The crimsonette was both faster and stronger than she looked- or maybe he was just weak and slow.

"Sorry!" She let go and slowed to a walking pace. "So, uh, have you thought about the project?"

"Yeah," he replied, now nervous about talking to her. He stayed ahead as they entered the computer lab.

"I don't know much about environmental stuff," Ruby admitted, sitting down beside him. "What do you want to do?"

"I want to do something really big, like a big bad event, not like a slow process," Connor said nervously as he logged into the computer. "So maybe something like Deepwater Horizon, or Fukushima."

"I don't know what either of those are," Ruby admitted. She pulled out her laptop and started it.

"Deepwater Horizon was an oil well that blew out a few years ago and made a huge mess of the Mexican Gulf," Connor explained, bringing up a pair of Wikipedia pages and snapping a window to each half of the screen (Aero Snap FTW). "Fukushima Daiichi was a nuclear meltdown in Japan after the earthquake three years ago."

"Let's do the one with the weird name," Ruby suggested. "That nuclear stuff I don't know much about, and it sounds interesting."

* * *

><p>"Hmm... you've already done the collaborative story, but I booked the netbooks anyway," the teacher, Mr. Johnson, mused. "I guess we'll start on the compare-contrast assignment, then."<p>

He started writing the vague requirements on the board, pausing midway through to announce, "Oh, and this one will be in groups of two as well."

Soon, all but two students were paired up. Aaron smiled. Weiss scowled. "_You_."

"What?" he protested.

"I don't like you. I don't want to work with you," Weiss snapped. She paused, remembering that she had hated Ruby at first, too. "But we have to work together, and I'm willing to give this a chance."

Aaron blinked. "Uh... okay. It's just one assignment."

"Of course," Weiss replied icily. "Do you know what we're doing?"

He told her, reading off the board, "Writing a compare and contrast essay between any chapter of The Things They Carried and either the excerpt from Platoon or the excerpt from Flight of the Intruder."

She looked at the board and cringed. "Ugh. Why are the instructions so vague?"

"It's Johnson," Aaron shrugged. "He gives really vague instructions, but he's a really easy marker."

The heiress folded her arms. "If he can't create clear requirements and mark properly based on them, then he shouldn't be teaching."

"Are you always this, well, you know-"

"Not always!" Weiss snapped. "You were just, well, you keep trying to prove that we're fictional characters. That's pretty fucking creepy."

"Not anymore!" he protested. He _did_ screw up, but he was _trying_ to get over it. "Let's just get started."

* * *

><p>Though she didn't show it, Vicki was nervous. She had been hoping to get partnered up with either Lisa or one of the nicer boys, but the teacher had paired people up at random. That meant she was working with the new girl, who was an odd mix of elegant and feminine and punk and tomboyish. She wore a toque that clashed with her hair.<p>

"I'm Blake. Bella Blake," the girl with the hat introduced. She smiled nervously. "I'm new here."

"That's a bit of a strange outfit, don't you think?" Vicki asked tactlessly.

"I'm not really into fashion."

"Do you ever take off your hat?"

"No."

"You should really consider-"

"No."

"Okay, sensitive about the hat, sorry," Vicki raised her hands. "Do you have like burns under there or something?"

Blake glared at her. "Look, if you don't ask about me, I won't ask about you."

"Sorry, sorry," Vicki apologized, realizing that Blake was probably one of those screwed up kids from a bad household. "I'll stop asking."

"Thank you."

"But you do know who I am, right?"

She looked over the girl. Weiss had talked about her- apparently she was a bit snobby, but probably not as well-off as she tried to act. Like a partially inverted Weiss. "You're Vicki, right?"

"That's right."

"You have business class with Anna Weiss, right?"

"The girl with the white hair? Yeah." Vicki mused, "Hey, I wonder why she dyes it white. I mean, I guess she can pull it off, but it's kind of weird, you know?"

"Not really," Blake replied, chuckling inwardly. _So much weirder than you think._

"Eh, let's just get started."

"Agreed."

* * *

><p>"We have the netbooks today, we're going to be doing an in-class writing assignment," the teacher announced, wheeling a cart with a printer on top into the room. "So line up and grab a netbook- make sure it's not one of the dead ones."<p>

The class lined up by the cart. Most of the students just grabbed the first laptop they saw, disconnecting the power and taking it back to their desks. The teacher unrolled a pair of cables from the cart and plugged them into the wall.

"Okay, we will be partnering up today," he announced just as Yang finished selecting one of the blue plastic computers. "Just get a partner- try to find someone you haven't worked with before, but you're free to choose who you want."

"Hey, Yang, wanna work together?" Gavin asked, carelessly waving his netbook.

Yang quickly weighed her options. On one hand, Gavin obviously had the hots for her, and she wasn't sure if she liked that or not. On the other hand, she at least knew him, and could end up stuck with someone worse. And he was still pretty hot. "Sure, why not?"

"Alright." They sat down together near the edge of the room.

"Okay, today you will be writing a story collaboratively. This is more a creative thing, and it's just one period, so I'm not going to set any rules or be especially critical. Not big, either, maybe... about five hundred words. Hmm... well, you have to incorporate a certain theme and a certain setting."

The teacher paused, looking contemplative, then wrote _rivalry_ on the board. "I want you to explore rivalry in some way. It could be rivalry as a good thing, or rivalry as a bad thing, or... well, just do what you feel with it."

He paused again, then wrote _fall_ beside it. "Fall. It's not a setting in the sense of a place, but remember that setting covers things like time and environment as well. So this is your setting."

"Just submit it into the share drive when you're done... no it's not working today, email it to me. It doesn't have to be a masterpiece, just work together and let your ideas flow."

After the teacher was finished, Gavin said to Yang, "Great. I suck at writing stories,"

"Why is that?" Yang asked, curiously raising an eyebrow.

"I'm not very creative," Gavin told her. "I can toss a football, I can twist a Marette, but coming up with ideas is another thing. They say look at your own life, but, well..."

"I thought you did football and had parties and stuff. That seems pretty interesting."

"It's fun, but not the kind of stuff you can make a story about. Not enough explosions." He laughed and turned to her, "What about you? Ideas?"

She laughed. "Not unless you want poorly-disguised fanfiction."

"Think that litfag will notice?" Gavin asked quietly.

She shook her head. "No, probably not."

"Hey, uh, Mister Johnson, what if we interpret the theme or setting or whatever wrong?" a girl asked from the other side of the room.

He raised an eyebrow. "Hmm? There's no wrong interpretation. Do what you feel you want to do."

"So, uh, how are you at typing?" Gavin asked his partner.

"Not very."

"Okay, I guess I'll do it then. So, how do we start this?"

Yang started to put the pieces together in her mind. "Okay, once upon a time, there was a white-haired princess. Uh, she needs a name-"

Gavin stopped typing and spat out the name of the first monarch he could think of. "Catherine?"

She shook her head. "Not sharp enough."

"Uh... Elizabeth?"

"Better. A white-haired princess named Elizabeth. Just outside her, uh, I guess it would be a palace, there's a girl with red hair named, uh... Crimson Flowers." She waited for Gavin to stop typing.

"Do you think we could make it a floating palace?" Gavin half-joked.

"Sure, why not," Yang replied. "One day, they meet..."

* * *

><p>bhark3: What is Remembrance Day like in Australia? I know about ANZAC Day but I wasn't aware that it was the more significant of the two dates.<p>

ODST110: I know about Veterans' Day, and my impression is/was that it's not a big deal like Remembrance Day is for us.

HiroNinja: Realism in the sense of how people interact is one of my main focuses for this fic, and I'm glad that I'm getting that right.


	13. All Expenses Paid

When it comes to technology and capabilities, I'm mostly making wild guesses. RWBY is very difficult for this because there's so little information and a lot of it is grossly inconsistent.

This is the first chapter of Aliens Among Us with sections cut because I didn't have time to write them. I, uh... I guess that's not really a good thing, is it?

Remember, there's a TVTropes page! I can't link it here, but if you search for _RWBY Emergence TVTropes_, you should be able to find it.

* * *

><p><span><strong>13: All Expenses Paid<strong>

The Learjet 40 sat on the runway with one engine running. It was owned by a shell company that eventually led to the Central Intelligence Agency. The pilots aboard routinely flew passengers that they weren't allowed to ask ask about. Still, they couldn't help but think these ones were a bit _odd_.

They ran through their checklist as the four passengers climbed aboard. None of them had ever flown on a private jet before. The last one in, a girl in a red hoodie packing a large duffel bag, shut the door behind her.

"I know this isn't exactly a fun trip, but I'm still really excited," Ruby said to nobody in particular, excitedly strapping herself into the leather seat. "I love airplanes!"

Weiss disagreed. "I hate them."

"You've only been on one, Weiss," she reminded her.

"And I hated it," she insisted. Grudgingly, she admitted to herself that it hadn't been as bad as she had expected, and that this airplane was a lot more comfortable.

"Yeah, but you flew economy class," Yang reminded her. "From what I've heard, economy class is horrible."

Blake reminded them, "Still better than the cargo hold."

"Oh, right, you sneaked onto a plane," Yang remembered. She leaned back as the plane came to a stop at the end of the runway. "Wow, that really must have sucked."

"You don't know the half of it."

"Everyone strapped in back there?" the pilot called from the front of the plane.

"Yes, captain!" Ruby shouted back enthusiastically, shooting off a mock salute.

He laughed. "Alright, then. Let's get this show on the road."

Ruby grinned as the pilots throttled the engines up, pushing the little jet forward and racing down the runway. Soon, they felt it lift off the ground. "Whee! Isn't it fun, Weiss?"

Her partner rolled her eyes and leaned back in her seat. "You're so childish."

* * *

><p>"Welcome to Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory," a small man in a grey suit greeted as they stepped out of the car. His hair was startlingly messy, and he looked fairly young, in his late twenties or thirties. "I'm Neil Olson."<p>

He shook hands with each of the girls in turn before waving for them to follow. "With me, please. I'm sure you have many questions."

"What do you do, Mister Olson?" Ruby asked, following him into the large, foreboding grey building.

"I'm from DARPA- that's the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency," he explained, stopping to show his ID to the security guards. "I'm the head of the Spectrum Project."

"Spectrum Project?" Weiss asked.

"It's a catch-all for everything to do with you guys- your technology, your biology, and... well, basically just that. Strategy and culture are other groups," Olson told them. "Small team, really secret, looking at some really cool stuff- it's actually kind of awesome. Reminds me of Stargate- that show's what got me into DARPA in the first place."

"But enough about my story," he concluded, swiping a card and allowing the girls into a high-tech lab. "We're gonna show you around, show you what we've found, and, yeah, we've got a few questions for you, actually."

"Wow..." Ruby breathed, trying to take in everything around her. There were lots of big, fancy looking machines with blinking lights making strange noises. Computer screens were scattered around the room. A dozen people carried out complex operations on experimental apparatuses that meant nothing to the four girls.

"Yeah, it's pretty impressive, isn't it?" Olson said proudly.

"We're not scientists," Weiss pointed out.

"You still know a lot more about this stuff than we do," a man in a lab coat said quickly, looking up from his work. The first thing they noticed was his long hair in a ponytail. The second thing they noticed was that the hair was grey with age. Although he had the mannerisms and part of the look, he was not a young man.

"This is Dr. Jared Diaz, one of the three scientists looking at Dust," Olson nodded to Weiss. "Thank you for providing those samples, by the way."

"And what a fantastic substance it is," he said in a manner that reminded the girls of Dr. Oobleck. "High energy potential. Self-aligning crystalline structure. And we're still not even sure exactly what it's made out of."

He zipped forward, whipping around and staring at Weiss. "I heard you are our resident Dust expert, Miss Schnee. What can you tell me?"

"Not much, I'm afraid," she replied, leaning back from the man she honestly found was kind of creepy. "My family owns the largest Dust company on Remnant, but I'm far from a scientist."

"Ah, so it would be like asking the CEO of ExxonMobil about drilling. Disappointing, but not unexpected. I suppose I shall ask anyway, for there must be something you know."

He grabbed an iPad off the table, glanced at it, then put it back. "No, that's not mine, that's the young guy's."

He zipped back to his workstation and picked up a different tablet, adjusting his glasses before asking, "Where does Dust come from?"

"It's mined."

"I know that!" he exclaimed, not rudely, but bluntly. "But where does it come from? Is it a fossil fuel? Created by radioactive decay? Is it star stuff?"

"I don't know," Weiss replied much more slowly. "Nobody knows. Most people just accept that it's always been there. But there's theories-"

He perked up. "Which theories?"

"Well, that it's a manifestation of the good in the world, the light or something like that. Then there are those that believe it was left to us by one deity or another-"

"These are not theories!" he objected. "These are not even hypotheses! I meant scientific theories!"

"Ooh! What about the shattered moon one?" Ruby suggested.

He moved uncomfortably close to the crimsonette. "Shattered moon?"

"That's the theory that Dust came from our moon, raining down on the planet when it was shattered," Weiss explained reluctantly. "But we don't even know that our moon is shattered, or if it's some odd illusion."

"You've never been there?"

"Of course not!"

"With the energy potential of Dust, you could have enough delta-V with a very small rocket! It would be easy... well, still complex, but not technically unfeasible... Well, nevermind... next question!"

With a flourish, he asked, "What is the composition of Dust?"

"It's, uh... I have no idea," Ruby answered.

Weiss shrugged.

"Don't look at us," Yang answered for herself and Blake.

"Ah, it was worth a shot. I suppose that young man owes me some money now... right then! How is Dust processed?"

"It's ground up, blended, and sometimes transmuted with the application of energy," Weiss replied. "A lot of it used to be done by hand and involved using Aura, but now it's all done by machines."

"Right, that brings us to the next question. How is Dust activated?"

"By Aura- that's the oldest method," Weiss replied. "Someone with the right skills and knowledge can manipulate Dust in a lot of ways. But now, Dust is part of our technology, and it's usually activated electrically, although I think it can be done with other forms of energy as well."

"Of course, that was one of the first things we figured out," the doctor said. He suddenly flipped the cover back over his tablet and tucked it under his arm. "Right, girls, thank you for trying to be useful... okay, that sounded bad... well, I'm sure Gunny will want to see you as soon as possible, bye now!"

* * *

><p>The drab field with a single corrugated trailer and small shade canopy was in stark contrast to the high-tech science lab they had left half an hour earlier. As they trudged through the field, the girls realized that there was what looked like a set of targets and a few obstacles arranged near the trailer.<p>

"Hey, you must be RWBY. Welcome to the fucking science lab," a tall, powerfully built dark-skinned man with fuzzy grey hair greeted. "I'm Leroy Wendall, but everyone around here just calls me Gunny."

"You don't look like a scientist, mister- Gunny," Ruby mentioned. She knew that looks could be deceiving, but less so on Earth.

"You'd be right," he confirmed. "I'm a Marine- retired, now. I served in Desert Storm- technically, I served in the second Gulf War, too, but by that point I was way behind the lines. I was a Gunnery Sergeant when I got out- that's why they call me Gunny."

Ruby asked him, "What do you do here?"

"I'm trying to figure out how your fucking guns work," he explained. "Firearms are my passion- I discovered that in the Corps. After I got out, I went into engineering, graduated, got a job with Remington, and then I ended up here."

"So... uh, what are we doing out here?" Yang asked, motioning to the area around them.

"I wanna take a look at your fuckin' weapons, first of all. Then I wanna see what you can do."

The retired Marine led them to a table set up under the tent. "Alright, just lay out those things."

"It'll be okay, sweetheart," Ruby whispered as she lay her High Caliber Sniper Scythe on the table.

"Sweetheart?"

Ruby flushed in embarrassment. "Oh... hehe... sorry, I'm really attached to Crescent Rose."

"You fucking named it?" His tone was rough, but more curious than critical. He turned to the other girls. "You all named them, didn't you?"

"Myrtenaster," Weiss admitted, placing her Multi Action Dust Rapier beside her leader's weapon.

"Gambol Shroud," Blake said quietly, adding her Variant Ballistic Chain Scythe to the collection.

Yang dropped her Dual Ranged Shot Gauntlets beside them. "Ember Celica."

"Fuckin' A. Alright, let's see what we got here." Gunny carefully picked up Crescent Rose. He eyed Ruby skeptically. "This really folds out into a scythe?"

"Yep!"

"Okay, then." He handed her a pair of crudely-built magazines. "I know your Dust rounds are precious, so we whipped up some substitute ammunition. It'll be dirty, and it won't have the same punch, but it should work."

Ruby took the magazines and expertly inserted one into her rifle. Chambering a round felt about the same as normal, she noticed. Taking extra care not to sweep anyone- her team didn't care, but the Gunny would probably murder her- she stepped up to the firing line.

"Okay, you have targets at one hundred, two hundred, and five hundred yards. There's one at a thousand, too, but I don't know if you'll be able to hit it."

"Probably not," Ruby admitted. She took a look at the range and noticed that in addition to a bench rest and some targets, there were also several cameras arrayed in the area.

"Right. When I tell you to go, put a few in each target, in gun mode. Then reload, switch to scythe mode, and hit them again. Got it?"

"Yeah."

The man put on a pair of ear protectors. "I don't suppose you need these. Okay, range is hot! You are cleared to fire!"

It took less than a minute for Ruby to hit all three targets, reload, transition to scythe (which almost startled the old gunner sergeant) and empty the next magazine. She tried the last round on the far target, and to her disappointment, missed.

Ruby cleared the chamber and unloaded the magazine, then inspected her rifle. "Ew, the barrel is full of black gunk."

As Ruby fussed over her scythe-rifle, the Marine trudged back to the tent, picking up and carefully examining Myrtenaster. He turned it over in his large, calloused hands, focusing on both the fine blade and complex mechanism.

"It's almost useless without Dust," Weiss mentioned, a tinge of sadness in her voice.

"Still a beautiful piece of machinery," Gunny commented, experimentally rotating the cylinder before placing it back down. He picked up Gambol Shroud and turned it around in his hand. "Now this has got to be the strangest fucking guns I've ever seen."

Blake glared at him. He quickly added, "I meant that as a compliment."

"I noticed that the gun part is similar to one we have on Earth. I made some educated guesses, and I'm hoping that with a different recoil spring, it'll run with our ammo." He handed Blake her weapon back, along with three different springs.

The cat faunus expertly disassembled her weapon. The first recoil spring was too short, and she didn't even try it. The second one was rather flimsy, but she installed it and reassembled the gun anyway.

The Marine handed her a full magazine. "Range is hot! You're clear to fire."

To Blake's surprise, the Earth ammo worked fine, cycling the action and ejecting cleanly. Or rather, it did for the first shot. The second failed to eject, stuck halfway out of the gun. She manually cleared it, and the same thing happened again.

"Nope." She dropped the magazine, checked the chamber- Terrans were very particular about that, she remembered- and popped off the slide, swapping the recoil spring for her original one.

"Well, we're close," Gunny commented, taking his spring back. "If that one almost worked, the other ones sure as hell won't. I'll try to get some more made for some more formal testing."

"Now, I've seen the scans, and I'm still not sure how your shotgun gauntlets work," Gunny told Yang after once glance at the weapons in question. "I'm guessing some kind of blow-forward action-"

"That's right!" Ruby piped up before her sister could answer.

"Okay. They should be breaking your wrists, but that's Emma's thing," He handed her a pair of rainbow coloured strips of ammunition. "These are all off the shelf. We want to know what works and what doesn't."

Yang picked up her gauntlets and clamped them back onto her wrists. A mix of emotions passed through her. She forced herself to focus, tossing the strips up in the air and reloading her weapons with a flourish.

"I'm not going to ask how the hell you just did that," the Marine muttered. "Range is hot! You're clear to fire."

It took only seconds for her to burn through all the ammunition, gauntlets firing with each punch.

"Well, that was more fun than I remembered," Yang said, grinning as she ejected the spent rounds and started to take off her gauntlets.

"Too bad we don't have time to run through the course," the Gunny groused, nevertheless impressed. "Alright, let's pack it up. Don't wanna keep the doc waiting."

* * *

><p>"Well, I'll admit this is the part of Spectrum I find most boring," Olson said, letting the team into the medical lab. "But I'm sure Emma is really excited about it, so I'll leave it to her."<p>

"Oh, definitely," a youngish woman with a soft face confirmed. She stripped off her gloves into a biohazard container. "I'm Doctor Emma Bowen, but Emma is fine. I've been looking at your physiology and genetics. I hope you don't mind."

"It's fine," Ruby answered for her team.

"So, doc, how human are we?" Yang asked immediately.

"You're more or less within human variation, with a few abnormalities." She turned to Blake. "Especially in your genome-"

"She's not actually part cat, is she?" Yang asked with a raised eyebrow. Blake glared at her.

"Well, she does have what appear to be feline genes, though she's still mostly ape like the rest of us." Two pairs of eyes glared back at her.

"Wait, what?" Weiss snapped, curious, confused, and a bit offended.

Dr. Bowen chose her words carefully. She knew that there were people who objected to evolution on Earth, and these people, despite appearance, might not even know of it. "It's generally accepted among the scientific community that humans evolved from a common ancestor with modern chimpanzees."

"Well, that's... fascinating," Weiss admitted.

"What, you don't think we were just literally born from Dust," Yang half-joked.

Weiss explained to the doctor, "Our old legend is that humans were literally born from Dust. We now think we have to have come from somewhere, but I don't think there are any concrete theories."

"Hmm... it's possible that you actually are descended from humans who evolved on Earth somehow," Emma theorized. "Do you have any fossil records of less-evolved ancestors?"

"We haven't come up with much, but nobody's ever looked. Maybe there was something I never heard about, but it's certainly not common knowledge."

"Well, it's certainly an interesting thing to look into, although we may never know," Emma mused. "I suppose you want to know how you're different from us?"

"We're different from you?" Ruby asked. "Oh, you're talking about Aura and Semblances, aren't you."

"No, in fact, we still have no idea what either of those are," the doctor said, shaking her head. "We haven't had much to go on- just your initial examination, those MRIs, and a few samples- but what we did see- well, it surprised us and it didn't surprise us."

"What did you see?"

"You're stronger, faster, and tougher than would be possible for a Terran of your body type. We knew that," she told the heiress. "Some of us thought it was solely because of your Aura, some of us thought you're above baseline human- excuse me, Terran. Looks like I was right."

"You were right?"

"I, uh, figured it would be the latter. As far as we can tell, you have denser bones than us. Denser muscles, too, and probably more effective. You mentioned you need more food than us- that's because your metabolism is faster than ours, probably to power all that. Nothing is free, after all."

She paused. "I'm curious about something, though. On Remnant, are you considered especially strong?"

"Yes," Weiss replied quickly. "Not among hunters, but compared to the general population, yes."

"How high? Top one percent? Top ten percent?"

The heiress shook her head. "I don't know. Uh..."

"Nope."

"Sorry."

Yang shrugged.

"And what about variation? What does the difference between the weakest and strongest look like? Are people stronger, faster, tougher on average compared to Earth."

"I'm not one for numbers," Yang said. "But I think it's bigger than on Earth- at least, I know there's a lot of strong people that are stronger than your best. Faster, too. That Bolt guy- I've _seen_ Ruby go faster. I'd say that we're a little bit stronger in general but there are quite a bit of tough people- maybe that shifts it or whatever."

"I can't tell you anything she hasn't already," Blake added.

Emma was slightly disappointed. "Oh, well. Thank you for answering our questions, frustrating as they may have been. Do you have any of your own?"

"Do you know why we're stronger?" Yang asked. "I mean, we're mostly the same, right? We look the same."

"A small difference in genetics can make a big difference when it comes to the resulting organism," Emma explained. "As for why, I'd say evolutionary pressures. Homo remnis- uh, we're still debating on the classification- has to be tough. Otherwise, you wouldn't be here."

* * *

><p>Firehawk242: Confirmed: Yang has ALWAYS shipped White Rose.<p>

bhark3: Ah, okay. I haven't heard much about it before, but I suppose it does make sense. Is the ANZAC unit still a thing?

ODST110: I wasn't aware that Veterans' Day isn't a holiday. In Canada, Remembrance Day is- well, I don't think it's actually a statutory holiday, but school is off.

Tatopatato: From her point of view, it's a fictionalized version of real events... sort of.

GunShot2016: It's a (semi) sequel to Emergence. If you haven't read that, it won't make a lot of sense. The last five chapters of Emergence can work as a summary if you don't want to read the whole thing.


	14. Shooting for the Stars

From the last update forward, I've set a tentative release schedule. Aliens Among Us on Fridays, Those You Leave Behind on Sundays, and Fateful Flight and another upcoming project whenever they're done.

It's a Ruby-centric chapter with a space theme. Just kind of happened that way. I may have run out of ideas halfway through.

Apparently the H.R. MacMillan Space Centre is now quite run-down and outdated. Notably, they don't seem to do the live planetarium shows or simulator rides anymore, which is very disappointing because _those were going to be in this chapter_.

I also haven't seen Interstellar. Their responses are based on the plot summary and reviews.

Do you prefer the third-person perspective that's been dominant so far or the first-person perspective that was dominant in Emergence?

* * *

><p><span><strong>14: Shooting For the Stars<strong>

"Okay, Team RWBY-" Ruby Rose began, before zipping along the table, collecting all the plates on the table.

"I wasn't done with that," Blake groused, but nobody could hear her.

"...today we are beginning our weekly museum visit!"

"Oh, great, she's being dramatic again," Weiss moaned before she could stop herself. She realized a moment later that though it was annoying, it meant Ruby was coping.

"Weekly museum visit?" Blake asked.

"Yes! From this point forward, we shall visit one museum every week," she explained. "While we are on this planet, we shall take advantage of the opportunity and learn as much as we can! It is our duty!"

"It won't last," the heiress muttered under her breath.

"Today, the H.R. MacMillan Space Centre!" the team leader announced with a flourish. "Alsoweregointoseeinterstellartonightbecauseireallywannaseethatmovie."

"Of course you do," Weiss groused, easily understanding her partner's rapid speech. She didn't admit that she had read about the movie and was... mildly interested.

* * *

><p>"This place looks... well, I think we're a little too old for it," Weiss commented, eyes darting between her brochure and odd, funnel-shaped building in front of them. "And it has definitely seen better days."<p>

"But they have a real moon rock, Weiss! A real moon rock that's touchable!" Ruby told her excitedly, jumping up and down. "There are only five of those in the world!"

She grabbed her partner's hand and dragged her up the steps. "Ruby! Slow down!"

Blake looked at her own partner, who shrugged in response. "Ruby's really taken to space."

"Hmm," the cat faunus said quietly, following Yang up the steps. "I guess it's one good thing Earth has that we never did."

"Gah! What is that thing?" Weiss complained, pulling herself free of Ruby.

The crimsonette rolled her eyes. "Duh, it's a fountain."

"It's an affront to tasteful sculpture!"

"It's a crab!"

"It's horrible!"

"It's not bad," Blake interjected. "The show starts in an hour, Ruby."

Ruby's eyes lit up as she gestured wildly toward the museum. "Right! Let's get moving! We've got to beat the crowds!"

* * *

><p>"There's no crowds," Weiss pointed out as they entered the gallery. Indeed, only a few children and parents, and a teenaged couple making out, were visible among the various exhibits. "In fact, this place looks dead."<p>

"That just means we have it to ourselves!" Ruby countered excitedly. She pointed up at a model hanging from the ceiling. "Look! It's the International Space Station!"

"The what?" Yang asked.

"It's a habitable artificial satellite used for research purposes," Weiss explained, then simplified, "It flies around in orbit and it has people on it."

Their leader zipped around excitedly, calling, "Ooh, look at the spacesuit! Ooh, look at the engine! Weiss, I want a picture!"

"Ruby, slow down!" Weiss called back, going after her. She found her standing beside a large bell-shaped piece of machinery and stopped beside her.

"It's a rocket engine," Ruby explained in awe.

"Eh..." Weiss had seen plenty of large machinery up close, and didn't really see anything special about this one. In fact, it looked kind of like an old piece of junk.

"It's been to space!"

"Okay, fine."

"You're not _excited_, Weiss." Ruby pouted. "You need to be _excited_."

Yang and her partner had given up trying to follow the duo. The blonde motioned toward a computerized kiosk. "Hey Blake, ever wonder what you'd look like as an alien?"

"Apparently, almost exactly like the locals," she deadpanned.

"Plan a Mars mission?"

She took one look at it. "I've been on this planet for two months and I can tell that was made about twenty years ago."

"Wanna try docking the Space Shuttle?"

"Not particularly."

Yang smirked mischievously and motioned toward the teenagers. "What about dropping in on that couple?"

"Yang!"

"Fine. Well, you can watch me try to dock the Space Shuttle. It's just like docking an airship, right? How hard can it be?"

Ruby, meanwhile, was searching for the moon rock, dragging her partner with her. She stopped suddenly and Weiss almost barrelled into her. "Found it!"

She read off the card, "This Apollo 17 lunar sample is one of only five touchable moon rocks in the world. This sample was collected by astronaut Jack Schmidt from the Taurus Litrow highlands and has been dated at 3.75 billion years old."

"It looks like any other rock," Weiss pointed out.

"Fine. Be a spoilsport. I'm going to enjoy this moment." Ruby reached under the protective glass and gently put one finger on the dark-coloured shard. She closed her eyes and smiled, imagining what Earth's non-shattered moon was like.

She blushed as another hand gently pushed hers out of the way, joining it under the glass. "Weiss?"

The white-haired girl glared back at her. "What? You wanted me to touch the rock, so I did."

"Way to ruin the moment, Weiss," Ruby said, pulling her hand back. "Come on, I saw a thing where you can get your picture in an astronaut suit on our way in."

"You are so immature," the heiress muttered, following her leader back toward the front of the gallery.

By the time she arrived, Ruby was already inside the plastic shell. She smiled and said, "Take a picture, Weiss."

"Fine. Ugh..." Despite her cold attitude, in some ways Weiss wished she could share the crimsonette's enthusiasm. This space stuff was pretty exciting, but years of pragmatic cynicism had torn away her ability to feel wonder as her younger teammate could. So she mechanically took a picture with her Earth-built phone and reminded her leader that the planetarium show was starting in twenty minutes.

"Someday..." Ruby whispered quietly as they headed out toward the planetarium.

* * *

><p>"The stars are different," Ruby whispered to her partner as the presenter started to explain the constellations visible from the Earth's surface.<p>

"You dolt." Weiss sighed. "It's a different planet. Of course the stars are different. That's what this show is about."

Ruby sank into her seat, embarrassed. "Oh, yeah. I knew that."

The presenter continued to explain the constellations. Ruby was enthralled. Weiss continued her veil of disinterest.

"You're enjoying it," Ruby whispered, leaning uncomfortably close. She did not reply.

"You know, I never really looked at the stars as a child," Blake whispered to her partner. "But now I'm wondering what's up there."

"Home," Yang replied quickly and quietly.

The cat faunus raised an eyebrow. "Home?"

"It's out there somewhere, Blake," she replied. "Will we be able to make it back? Who knows. But it's out there somewhere."

* * *

><p>"That was amazing!" Ruby practically shouted as they left the museum.<p>

"It was mediocre at best," Weiss groused.

"Weiss!"

"Mediocre. At. Best."

Ruby looked hopefully at her sister. "Yang?"

"It was fun," she replied with a shrug. "Could use a splash of paint and some new exhibits, though."

"Blake?"

"It was interesting."

"To the cinema!" Ruby proclaimed dramatically. "We'll be just in time for early showing, come on!"

* * *

><p>"Ruby, you can't possibly eat all that," Weiss said, trying to pull the massive bag of popcorn from her team leader's hands. The crimsonette pulled away, clutching her popcorn protectively.<p>

Yang shook her head, "Oh yes she can."

"Itf Earf pofcorn," she replied through a mouthful of the stuff. "It's not like it'll make me fat or anything."

"I still think this is a waste of time," the white-haired girl insisted. She refused to buy popcorn, deriding it as a food for peasants. Instead, she had a bag of sugared peaches and a medium-sized Pepsi.

"Come on, Weiss, it's fun, and we can learn stuff, and they don't have many movies like this at home," the team leader rattled off. She complained, "I just wish there weren't so many ads."

Blake peered over her book, this one a novel that seemed to be popular. "Hmm?"

"Blake, why are you reading?" Ruby whined.

"Because of the ads," she replied. "I'll put it away before the movie starts."

"Fine," Ruby replied, rolling her eyes and stuffing another handful of popcorn into her mouth.

* * *

><p>"Well... what did you think?" Ruby asked, tossing her empty popcorn and cup into the trash as she skipped out of the theater.<p>

"My brain hurts from the science," her sister commented with a shrug. "It was pretty cool, though. Mostly. Okay, yeah, I wasn't really paying much attention to the plot."

"It was pretentious," Blake opined. "Under all its glamour and posturing, it was just another save the world movie."

"Aww," Ruby sounded disappointed. "Weiss?"

"It was... interesting. Honestly, though, I was more intrigued by the background than the events of the movie itself."

"Well, I liked it," Ruby said cheerfully. "I call today a success. Onward!"

Weiss simply rolled her eyes and followed her toward the transit station.

* * *

><p>Firehawk242: I know, but I really wanted to make the joke.<p>

Guest: It's not that I wanted to; I just didn't have the time, motivation, or muse to fit everything in. Some of the questions will be answered later, however.

Fourze: It's deliberately left ambiguous for now.

Tatopatato: Technically, they'd be half-Remnan. I have decided on what half-Remnans would be like already- it's not exactly the same.

GreatWyrmGold: Aaron hasn't given up completely, but he's put it aside for the time being. Myself and several others felt that plot arc was getting tiring, but it's by no means dead. Yang doesn't ship White Rose herself, but she's read some fics that do.


	15. From The Other Side

Delayed by a day because I was travelling and wanted to sleep. Those You Leave Behind may also be delayed or even skip a week, we'll see.

A first-person perspective chapter. May be short and not too good because I didn't really have a lot of time to write this week.

There's another set of notes at the bottom of the chapter. I think I started it last chapter, but this is going to be a regular thing from now on.

* * *

><p><span><strong>15: From The Other Side<strong>

_**Aaron Wong**_

It was hard to treat Blake as, well, a human, instead of Blake. I thought I'd banished the thought from my head, but it occasionally went to the front of my mind and I'd do something stupid. Like make dumb cat jokes that made no sense out of context and only Yang would laugh at. Actually, she did laugh at most of them. Maybe I should ship Bumblebee- damn it! See what I mean?

I will say that her friends Ruby, Weiss, and Yang didn't make it a lot easier. Okay, you have to fudge which names you use to get it to line up that nicely, but still... RWBY. Although if you really look, you can tell that it can't be them. The hair's wrong, the facial structure is wrong, they sometimes wear the wrong outfits.

I'm not too good with people, I'll admit it, but even I can tell that their personality is off. Ruby isn't quite as cheerful, and I think she's actually more mature than the Ruby in RWBY. Anna is a little bit warmer than Weiss, though she's still kind of a bitch sometimes. And Linda isn't as flirty or outgoing as Yang- in fact sometimes she gets really quiet and has this thousand-yard stare.

Of course, there's no doubt I'm hugely overthinking the whole thing, which is what Gavin seems to think.

"Dude, you're thinking too hard," Gavin would tell me.

"Yeah, I know," I'd tell him back.

I did try to talk to Blake, though. She didn't talk much, so usually it was me spouting about sports or the news or occasionally anime. Okay, it was more talking at me. I guess she still didn't like me, even though it was almost a month since the stupid party. Then again, if someone said I was a fictional character who somehow popped into the real world I'd probably think they were crazy or an asshole or both. But she was being a little more opening, giving me monosyllable answers.

So mostly I just watched her, which was maybe creepy but I actually don't know the first thing about how relationships are supposed to work. I mean, Gavin always had a girl on his arm until recently, but I never had any idea how he did it. Which is another weird thing- he didn't for the past month or so, I guess maybe he was over that kind of relationship or something. I thought he had his eye on Yang, and I mean I couldn't blame him, even if she wasn't really Yang Xiao Long she's still really hot.

I noticed a few things about Bella Blake and actually some of them didn't mesh with Blake Belladonna. She liked mostly non-fiction books, not smut novels. On the other hand, the ones I saw were on Martin Luther King, that African guy who looks like Morgan Freeman, and the Holocaust. She always wore a hat, but sometimes it would be a different hat, and sometimes she's have two for some reason. She seemed to prefer pizza and burgers to sandwiches, but then again so do I. And sometimes I thought she was watching me but that's just me being paranoid- I'm the creeper here maybe.

And of course Anna still didn't talk to me much. She was kind of weird, too, but then again, who isn't? I mean, I'm the big tough football player, but I'm into anime, even though I don't really make a point of it. That's Gavin, who makes a point of my weeaboo every time he can. He may be an asshole, but he's actually a hell of a lot smarter than he looks. I mean, most of us have no idea what we're gonna do after we cross that stage, but he's already got his plans made.

Fuck, I don't even know.

* * *

><p><em><strong>Connor Lloyd<strong>_

I don't know what Ruby and me were.

Were we just class partners? We were working together in Science and she wasn't very good at it really but she tried a lot harder than other people so it's okay. She actually wanted to learn stuff which was kind of rare sadly. We worked together well even if we were super awkward at first.

Were we friends? I didn't really have many friends, and I don't know if it's really something that can be defined. She stuck with me in PE and stood up for me and I guess that's what friends do. We started hanging out together a little during lunch sometimes, but that was mostly when we had to work. I wanted to ask her to hang out more but I was worried that it would be going too far or something.

Were we actually together? I mean were were spending quite a bit of time together. And she did like hugging a lot. I think it's not weird to have friends that are girls but maybe this is more than that? It's not like I know what love is or how dating works or that. And I don't know but maybe Ruby doesn't either.

And she still looked kind of weirdly familiar or something. One day I asked her about this. But I didn't know how to do it so it came out really awkward.

"What? Do I have something on my face?" Her hands flew up to her hair. "Oh, no, did I forget to comb my hair again?"

"No, no, it's nothing like that!" I said back.

She stopped messing with her hair and asked, "Huh?"

"It's just that you kind of look familiar," I told her. "Not like I knew you before or anything like that, but maybe you look like an actress or something."

"Psssh..." She did a little dismissive wave thingy with her hand. "Well, okay, maybe, yeah, that's probably it. I don't know who, though."

"Yeah, I dunno."

* * *

><p><em><strong>Vicki Lee<strong>_

I still wasn't sure what to think of Anna.

For example, she can be a stone-cold bitch.

"Is this an effective way to do business?" Ms. Patil asked in class, referring to some article we had to read about a company tearing down the rainforest and running factories with workers that couldn't afford to live. "Anna?"

Her answer was quick and decisive."Absolutely."

Ms. Patil blanched- if you can call that blanching. "We discussed this an example of unethical business practices. Why do you say that, then?"

"The goal of business is to make money, is it not?" she said smarmily.

"Yes, but-"

"Then if exploitation is more profitable, a business should exploit." She sounded almost bored. "Is it ethical? Of course it's not. Is it right? Of course not. But as you've said, business is business."

"Okay, if we are to look at it from a purely pragmatic perspective, what of the potential negative consequences to your business. Problems that could affect profit, if that is your sole goal."

"You deal with them in other ways," Anna replied. "If you need to improve public perception, that's what public relations campaigns are for. If you need to deal with unruly workers, well, I don't suppose I need to explain that?"

"Please do." I could tell Ms. Patil was curious but afraid of what her answer would be.

"I believe you call them _private military contractors_."

The room went silent at that. One of the stupid boys muttered, "Is she serious?"

"And you truly believe this is how we should do business?" Ms. Patil was unusually quiet.

"No," the white-haired girl replied honestly. "But that wasn't the question you asked. You asked if it was an effective way to do business. There is plenty of evidence that it is. You never asked to bring morality into the equation."

On the other hand, she puts up with this really weird girl.

"Weiss!" a high-pitched voice shouted as we headed out of class. A girl in red zipped by and slammed into Anna, pulling her into a tight hug.

"Ruby!" Anna shouted semi-angrily, prying the other girl off. "Why are you hugging me right after class?"

"You looked like you needed a hug," The girl replied, rolling her eyes. I got my first good look at her. She was younger, for sure, maybe grade nine or ten. Then again, maybe she just looked young. Her hair was black, but she'd put red streaks in it. She wore a rust-coloured hoodie that was at least clean, along with a weird skirt and some kind of knockoff Converse. She was also a bit taller than Anna, even with her heels. "I'm gonna run to the caf for lunch today. Want anything?"

"Same as usual." So they ate lunch together. Weird.

She looked at me. "Who's this?"

"That would be Vicki," Anna introduced. "She's in my business class."

"Hi," I said hesitantly. The redhead would be kind of adorable as a little sister or something, but I did not want to associate with her.

"Hi, I'm Ruby. Nice to meet you!" She grabbed my hand and nearly pulled it off, without asking or anything. Her palms were sweaty and kind of gross.

"Ruby, don't you have engineering?" Anna reminded the girl.

"Oh, crap! Gottarunbye!" Ruby said, panicking. She dashed away, knocking over some dumb jock boy as she ran past.

"Bye, Ruby," Anna called. For a brief moment, I saw a smile flash across the ice queen's face.

"Who was that?" I asked her, derision in my voice. I'm not sure if I meant that or not.

"That would be my _best friend_." She turned on her heel and strutted away.

Like I said, Anna was weird. I'm still not sure if she's rebellious old money, poor but pretentious, some kind of weird foreign person, or just a bitch.

* * *

><p><em><strong>Gavin Lloyd<strong>_

How can you tell between a stupid crush and actual love?

I'm a big dude, good looking, charming, well-known, just generally one of those popular guys that actually exist. Usually that gets girls latched onto me right away. Yang, though... well, she doesn't seem to find me any more charming than the average guy. At first I thought it was just because she didn't know me, but she doesn't seem to like me.

Yes, I've considered the possibility that she prefers girls, and no, I haven't asked. Besides, she's nowhere near butch enough to be a lesbian.

Maybe I'm the one who needs to try harder. I usually just took what I could get and usually that's pretty good. She's really hot, but so are a lot of other girls. There's just something a little different about her, and maybe I want her and maybe I just want to know more about her.

Aaron, meanwhile, is constantly trying to tell me that she's some kind of Anime character, although I think he finally got the message that I'm calling bullshit for reasons that should be really, really, really obvious because he hasn't been as insane about the whole thing lately. In fact, he's even started to talk to her like a human.

I really shouldn't be so hard on the guy. Being a football star doesn't make you automatically a socially awesome centre of attention, especially on this side of the border. Eh, maybe it doesn't in America in 2015 either.

I know I was spending way too much time thinking about it. I had to keep my marks up, which wasn't easy. Physics 11 wasn't too bad, but I had to really learn it because I had Physics 12 next semester and that was apparently a total bitch. Pre-Calculus 12, on the other hand, is pure pain. I totally understand why most people just do Grade 11 math and stop there. But I promised myself I'd be in the best possible position getting out of high school, so here I am.

We all have our dreams. Trying to pursue them against hopeless odds or just settling for something good enough... that's the question. And that's both stupidly melodramatic and totally stolen out of a movie.

It wasn't really the end of the semester coming, but it felt like it. There's work to do.

* * *

><p>BbK2442: I figured Ruby would latch on to space almost immediately. Blake's statement of space exploration as the only good thing about Earth is rather cynical, but it's not unreasonable to say that it's the only fantastic thing about Earth. Most of our world if fairly mundane and boring compared to Remnant.<p>

TheMAO17: True. I'm still not sure how much I want Weiss to loosen up and how quickly. The way she acts- bitchy, superior, and hiding her feelings- is very ingrained into her. On the other hand, she's been with RWBY for a term and has loosened up a bit, and now the whole heiress thing is basically a moot point.

Firehawk242: It wasn't originally written that way, but I did realize it before I posted and decided to leave it that way.

Tatopatato: I'm going to be very frustrating and say that you're not wrong, but you're not right either.

ocomfv: The moon rock? It's not that kind of story... or is it? Yang has read fanfics, Ruby hasn't read as many and certainly not the adult ones. They don't want to try randomly using Aura on things until they know more about what it is.

linkthetoaoftime: It certainly makes the experience more personal, but it provides less context and sense of scale. I almost feel as if third-person would have been better for Emergence and first-person for this.

HiroNinja: True; most of my references are based on much lower-ranked Marines in a far different setting.

I feel there isn't enough differentiation between characters, especially Aaron and Gavin. I'm also worried about devoting an entire chapter to OCs. What do you think?


End file.
